0 
0 
0 


8 


0 


I 


i       IN: 


i 


I 


i    !|; 


.  ij 


'  ''I 


iilli 


\  s 

n 


LECTURES 


UPON   THE 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTOPtY. 


BY 

WILLIAM  G.  T.  SHEDD, 

BEOWK  PROFESSOR  IN  ANDOVER  THEOLOGICAL   SEMINARY. 


ANDOVER: 
PUBLISHED    BY    W.    F.    DRAPER. 

BOSTON:  JOHN   P.  JEAVETT  &  CO. 
NEW  YORK:  WILEY  AND  HALSTED. 

PUILADELPHIA:   SMITH,  ENGLISH  AND  CO. 

1857. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1856,  by 

W.     F.     DRAPEE, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


BTEEEOTTPED     AND      PRINTED     BY 
W  .    F  .    DRAPER,    A  N  D  O  V  E  R . 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

miRODUCTOEY  NOTE, ■ 5 


LECTURE   I. 

THE  ABSTRACT  IDEA  OF  HISTORY, 7 

LECTURE   II. 

THE  NATURE,  AND  DEFINITION,  OF  SECULAR  HISTORY,    .      52 

LECTURE   III. 

THE  NAXUEE,  AND  DEFINITION,  OF  CHURCH  HISTORY,     .      77 

LECTURE   IV. 

THE  VERIFYING  TEST  IN  CHURCH  HISTORY, 105 


INTRODUCTORY  NOTE. 


The  substance  of  this  book  was  originally  written, 
in  the  winter  of  1853-4,  as  an  introduction  to  courses 
of  prelections  in  the  department  of  Ecclesiastical 
History.  Tliis  will  account  for  its  prevailing  reference 
to  this  department,  as  well  as  for  the  tone  of  direct 
address  which  occasionally  characterizes  it.  At  the 
same  time,  it  is  hoped  that  the  work  will  be  found  to 
have  a  general  reference  to  all  species  of  historical 
inquiry,  and  may  contribute  to  deepen  and  widen  the 
growing  interest  in  the  most  comprehensive  of  the 
sciences. 


Theological  Seminary,  Andover. 
Jan.  2,  1856. 


'} 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY 


LECTURE    I. 

THE  ABSTRACT  IDEA  OF  HISTORY. 

In  order  to  the  successful  investigation  of  any  sub- 
ject, it  is  necessary,  first  of  all,  to  form  a  comprehen- 
sive and  clear  conception  of  its  essential  nature. — 
Without  such  an  antecedent  general  apprehension,  the 
mind  is  at  a  loss  where  to  begin,  and  which  way  to 
proceed.  The  true  idea  of  any  object,  is  a  species  of 
preparatory  knowledge  which  throws  light  over  the 
whole  field  of  inquiry,  and  introduces  an  orderly  method 
into  the  whole  course  of  examination.  It  is  the  clue 
which  leads  through  the  labyrinth  ;  the  key  to  the 
problem  to  be  solved. 

It  may  appear  strange  and  irrational,  at  first  glance, 
to  require  a  knowledge  of  the  intrmsic  nature  of  that 
which  is  to  be  examined,  in  order  that  it  may  be  ex- 
amined, and  before  the  examination.  At  first  sight,  it 
may  seem  as  if  this  perception  of  the  true  idea  of  a 


8  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

thing,  should  be  the  result,  and  not  the  antecedent,  of 
inquh-y,  and  that  nothing  of  an  a  priori  nature  should 
be  permitted  to  enter  into  the  investigations  of  the 
human  mind  in  any  department  of  knowledge.  To 
require  in  the  outset  a  comprehensive  idea,  of  History 
e.  g.,  and  then  to  use  this  as  an  instrument  of  investi- 
gation, seems  to  invert  the  true  order  of  things,  and  to 
convert  ignorance  into  knowledge  by  some  shorter 
method  than  that  of  study. and  reflection.  But  what 
is  the  matter  of  fact  ?  Does  the  scientific  mind  start 
off  upon  its  inquiries  in  every  direction,  without  any 
pre-conceived  ideas  as  to  where  it  is  going,  and  what 
it  expects  to  find  ?  Is  the  human  understanding  such 
a  tabula  rasa,  that  it  contributes  nothing  of  its  own, 
towards  the  discovery  of  truth,  but,  like  the  mirror, 
servilely  reflects  all  that  is  brought  before  it,  wdthout 
regard  to  reflections  and  distortions  ?  We  have  only 
to  watch  the  movements  of  our  minds  to  find  that  we 
carry  with  us  into  every  field  of  investigation  an  an- 
tecedent idea,  which  gives  more  or  less  direction  to  our 
studies,  and  goes  far  to  determine  the  result  to  which 
we  come.  We  are  not  now  concerned  with  the 
reasonableness  or  unreasonableness  of  this  fact;  we 
are  now  only  alluding  to  it  as  an  actual  matter  of  fact 
which  appears  in  the  history  of  every  studious  and 
reflecting  mind.      Even  if  we  deem  it  to  be  iiTational 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  » 

and  groundless,  and  for  this  reason  endeavor  to  do 
away  with  it  in  our  studies,  we  find  it  to  be  impossible. 
If  we  begin  the  study  of  Philosophy,  it  is  with  a 
general  conception  of  its  nature  ;  and  one  that  is  con- 
tinually re-appearing  in  our  philosophizing.  If  we  com- 
mence the  examination  of  Christianity  itself,  we  find 
that  we  already  have  an  idea  of  its  distinctive  character 
as  a  religion,  which  exerts  a  very  great  influence  upon 
our  inquiry  into  its  constituent  elements,  and  particu- 
larly upon  our  construction  of  its  doctrines.*  The 
demand  therefore  so  constantly  made  by  the  Ration- 
alist of  every  century,  that  the  mind  must  be  entirely 
vacant  of  a  priori  ideas  and  initiating  preconceptions  ; 
in  his  phraseology,  must  be  free  from  "  prejudices ;  "  in 
order  that  it  may  nlake  a  truly  scientific  examination, 
is  a  demand  that  cannot  be  complied  with,  even  if 
there  were  a  disposition  to  do  so  on  the  part  of  the 
inquirer,  and  is  not  complied  with  even  on  the  part  of 
him  who  makes  it.  With  the  origin  of  such  guid- 
ing ideas  we  have  no  concern  at  this  time.     It  is 

*  This  idea  contains  such  pre-judgments  as ;  that  Christianity  is  a 
supernatural  religion  ;  that  its  author  is  Divine;  that  its  truths  are  mysteri- 
ous^ i.  e  are  infinite,  and  therefore  cannot  be  exhausted  by  the  finite 
intelligence.  Notice  that  these  judgments  arc  a  priori ;  i.  e.  they  flow 
from  the  nature  of  the  case.  For  if  Christianity  is  a  religion  differing  in  kind 
from  all  natural  religions,  then  the  above  elements  are  necessarily  involved 
in  the  conception  and  theory  of  it. 


10  THE    PHILOSOniY    OF    HISTORY. 

sufficient  for  our  purpose  to  indicate  their  actual  exist- 
ence in  the  human  mind,  and  their  actual  influence 
and  operation  in  all  departments  of  its  investigation. 
With  the  correctness  of  these  ideas,  on  the  contrary,  we 
have  a  much  closer  concern  ;  for  if  they  exist  in  spite 
of  all  efforts  to  be  rid  of  them,  and  make  them- 
selves visible  in  all  the  investigations  of  the  student, 
and  in  all  the  products  of  his  investigation,  it  is 
certainly  of  the  first  importance  that  they  be  true 
ideas  ;  that  is,  exact  correspondents  to  the  real  nature 
of  things. 

What  then  is  the  true  idea  of  History  with  which 
we  should  commence  our  studies  and  reflections  in  this 
department  of  knowledge,  and  how  may  we  know 
that  it  is  the  true  idea,  and  therefore  entitled  to  guide 
our  inquiries,  and  shape  our  constructions  ?  The 
correct  answer  to  these  questions  will  constitute  the 
Philosophy  of  History. 

It  is  now  very  generally  conceded  that,  in  its  abstract 
and  essential  nature.  History  is  Development,  and  with 
this  we  agree.  The  idea  of  an  unfolding  is  identical 
with  that  of  a  history.  In  thinking  of  the  one,  we 
unavoidably  think  of  the  other,  and  this  evinces  an 
inward  coincidence  between  the  two  conceptions. 
Unceasing  motion,  from  a  given  point,  through  several 
stadia,  to  a  final  terminus,  is  a  characteristic  belong- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  11 

ing  as  inseparably  to  a  historic  process  as  to  that  of 
any  evolution  whatsoever.  In  bringing  before  our 
minds,  the  passage  of  an  intellectual  or  a  moral  princi- 
ple from  one  degree  of  energy  and  efficiency  to  another, 
in  the  history  of  a  nation,  or  of  mankind,  we  unavoid- 
ably construe  it  as  a  continuous  and  connected  career. 
The  same  law  of  organic  sequence  prevails  within 
the  sphere  of  mind  and  of  freedom  that  works  in  the 
kingdom  of  matter  and  of  necessity,  so  that  terms 
applied  to  the  connected  events  and  processes  of 
the  natural  world,  have  a  strict  application  in  the 
moral,  and  a  far  more  significant  meaning.  The 
phrases,  "principles  of  history,"  "laws  of  history," 
"  ideas  and  germs  in  history,"  which  occur  so  frequently 
in  essays  and  treatises  as  to  become  monotonous,  and 
which  render  the  invention  of  synonymes  and  cir- 
cumlocutions one  of  the  most  difficult  of  rhetorical  ex- 
pedients, all  go  to  prove  that  the  spontaneous  concep- 
tion of  History  is  that  of  a  progi-essive  expansion 
from  a  primitive  involution. 

If  any  one  doubts  whether  such  phraseology  is  any- 
thing more  than  the  play  of  the  fancy,  and  is  inclined 
to  believe  that  there  is  no  actual  correspondent,  to  these 
terms,  in  the  truth  and  fact  of  the  case,  let  him  ask 
himself  the  question :  "  if  History  has  no  real  and 
solid  substance,  of  the  nature  of  germs,  principles,  ideas, 


12       THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

laws  and  forces,  then  what  substantial  matter  has  it 
at  all  ?  If  these  are  all  unreal,  the  mere  fictions  of  the 
fancy,  with  no  objective  correspondents  in  that  career 
of  man  on  the  globe  which  every  one  concedes  to  be  a 
reality,  and  the  most  solemn  of  all,  then  what  is  the 
real  essence  of  History  ?  "  For  throwing  out  such 
deeper  and  more  vital  contents  as  we  are  speaking  of, 
there  remain  only  the  unconnected  materials  of  names, 
dates,  and  occurrences  ;  a  multitudinous  sea  of  effects 
without  causes ;  an  ocean  of  phenomena  without  a 
single  supporting  ground ;  a  chaos  of  atoms  with  no 
sort  of  connection  or  intermingling.  A  search  after 
the  truth  and  substanca  of  the  department,  in  this  in- 
stance, as  in  all  others,  carries  the  mind  below  the 
surface  to  constituent  elements  and  principles,  so  that 
it  perceives  the  world  of  Human  History  to  be,  after 
its  own  kind,  as  full  of  germs,  laws,  and  forces,  as 
the  globe  beneath  our  feet ;  and  that  thfe  property  of 
reality ;  of  forceful  influential  existence  ;  is  as  predi- 
cable  of  the  former  as  of  the  latter. 

This  essential  substance  of  History  is  continually 
passing  through  a  motive  process.  The  germ  is 
slowly  unfolding  as  it  is  the  nature  of  all  germs  to  do. 
Egyptian  wheat  may  sleep  in  the  swathes  and  foldings 
of  a  mummy,  through  three  thousand  springs,  but  the 
purpose  of  its  creation  cannot  be  thwarted  except  by 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  13 

the  destruction  of  its  germinal  substance.  It  was 
created  to  grow,  and  notwithstanding  this  long  interval 
of  slumbering  life  the  development  begins  the  instant 
the  moist  earth  closes  over  it.  In  like  manner  an  idea 
which  originally  belongs  to  the  history  of  humanity 
may  be  hindered  in  its  progress,  and  for  ages  may 
seem  to  be  out  of  existence  ;  yet  it  is  none  the  less  in 
existence  and  a  reality.  It  is  all  the  while  a  factor  in 
the  earthly  career  of  mankind,  and  the  historian  who 
should  throw  it  out  of  the  account  would  misconceive 
and  misrepresent  the  entire  historic  process.  An  idea 
of  human  reason,  like  popular  liberty,  e.  g.,  may  make 
no  external  appearance  for  whole  periods,  but  its  re- 
appearance, with  an  energy  of  operation  heightened  by 
its  long  suppression  in  the  consciousness  of  nations,  is 
the  most  impressive  of  all  proofs  that  it  has  a  necessary 
existence  in  human  nature,  and  is  destined  to  be 
developed.  A  doctrine  of  Divine  reason,  like  that  of 
justification  by  Christ's  atonement,  is  a  positive  truth 
which  has  been  lodged  in  the  christian  mind  by  Divine 
Revelation,  and  is  destined  to  an  universal  influence, 
a  complete  development,  in  and  through  the  church ; 
notAvithstanding  that  some  branches  and  ages  of  the 
church  have  lost  it  out  of  their  religious  experience. — 
Whatever  has  been  inlaid  either  in  matter  or  in  mind 
by  the  Creator  of  both,  is  destined  by  Him  and  under 

2 


14       THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY 

his  own  superintendence  to  be  evolved ;  aud  of  all 
such  necessary  matter,  be  it  in  natural  or  in  moral 
history,  we  may  say,  that  not  a  particle  of  it  will  be 
annihilated  ;  it  will  pass  through  the  predetermined 
stages  of  an  expanding  process  and  obtain  a  full  ex- 
hibition. 

1.  Proceeding,  then,  to  the  analytic  definition  of  this 
idea  of  development,  which  enters  so  thoroughly  into 
the  theory  and  philosophy  of  History,  the  first  charac- 
teristic that  strikes  our  notice  is  the  necessary  connec- 
tion of  parts.  Isolation  is  impossible.  No  single  part 
can  stand  alone  and  exist  by  itself.  The  principle  of 
connection  binds  all  together,  so  that  the  part  exists 
only  in  and  for  the  whole.  Atoms,  in  the  original  and 
strict  meaning  of  the  term,  are  no  constituents  of  a 
process  of  evolution,  and  the  atomic  theory  can  throw 
no  light  upon  such  a  process.  The  atom,  by  the  very 
etymology,  is  entirely  disconnected  from  all  besides 
itself.  Matter  has  been  cut  down,  ideally,  to  that  infini- 
tesimal point  at  which  it  constitutes  the  very  first 
element,  and,  consequently,  is  now  out  of  all  connec- 
tion, a  single  independent  unit  by  itself.  No  such 
element  as  this,  unassimilated  and  remaining  so,  can 
be  a  rudimental  part  in  a  development.  Nothing  that 
asserts  an  isolated  existence,  and  obstinately  refuses 
to  enter   into  connections,  can  go  into  an  evolution. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  15 

The  atomic  particles  of  a  heap  of  sand,  e.  g.,  can  never 
be  part  or  particle  of  a  process  of  growth,  because  each 
exists  by  and  for  itself.  A  rope  of  sand  is  the  symbol 
of  disconnection. 

If  now  we  test  History  by  this  first  characteristic 
of  a  development,  do  we  not  find  exact  agreement  be- 
tween the  two  conceptions  ?  History  is  a  continuous 
line  of  connections.  We  can  no  more  conceive  of  a 
true  break  or  perfect  disconnection  in  it,  than  in  the 
current  of  a  river.  Though  it  naturally  divides  into 
periods  and  ages,  distinguished  from  each  other  by 
epochal  points,  yet  there  is  no  separation  at  these 
points.  The  epoch  itself,  like  a  living  joint  in  the 
human  frame,  is  itself  a  tie  by  which  the  parts 
are  articulated  together  and  constitute  one  con- 
tinuous organism.  It  is  as  impossible  to  find  a  real 
break  and  absolute  disconnection  in  History,  as  in 
nature.  In  nature,  nothing  but  a  miracle  can  stop  the 
onward  flow  of  a  stream  and  wall  up  the  waters  on 
each  side  of  a  dry  space  in  its  channel,  and  nothing 
but  a  new  fiat  of  creative  power  could  now  sever  the 
human  race  into  two  halves,  each  of  which  should  be 
entirely  separate  from  the  other,  and  between  which 
there  should  be  no  more  reciprocity  of  connection  and 
influence  than  there  now  is  between  the  angelic  hosts 
and  the  human  race.     As  the  Historian  follows  the 


16  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

line  backwards  up  toward  the  jooint  of  beginning,  he 
finds  the  succeeding  linked  to  the  preceding,  civiliza- 
tion joining  on  upon  civilization,  arts  and  inven- 
tions clinging  to  arts  and  inventions  further  up  the 
line,  literatures  and  religions  tied  to  preceding  ones  ; 
in  short,  he  never  comes  to  a  point  where  there  are  no 
connected  antecedents  until  he  reaches  the  beginning 
of  human  history,  where  the  basis  for  the  whole  pro- 
cess was  laid  by  a  fiat,  supernatural,  and  creative.* 

2.  The  second  characteristic  of  a  development  is 
the  natural  connection  of  parts.  The  sequence  is  not 
arbitrary  and  capricious  ;  mere  juxtaposition  without 
any  rational  coherence.  The  two  parts  that  are  con- 
nected have  a  mutual  adaptation  to  each  other.  The 
one  was  evidently  intended  to  succeed  the  other,  and 
the  other  evidently  prepares  for,  and  expects,  the  one. 
There  is,  consequently,  nothing  strange  or  whimsical 
in  a  genuine  evolution,  either  in  the  sphere  of  nature 
or  of  spirit.  Everything  advances  with  a  tranquil 
uniformity  that  precludes  startling  and  unexpected 
changes,  because  each  and  every  part  is  a  preparation 

*  Back  of  the  creative  act  there  is  no  development.  History  is  ia 
time  solely,  and  pertains  solely  to  the  finite  and  created.  It  implies 
succession  and  evolution,  and  therefore  cannot  pertain  to  a  Being  who, 
unliice  his  works,  is  not  subject  to  unfolding  processes  of  any  kind,  but  is 
"  the  same,  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever." 


THE    I'  11  I  L  O  S  O  P  II  Y    OF    HISTORY.  17 

for  that  which  is  to  come.  Any  movement  in  nature 
is  always  impressive  from  the  perfect  serenity  with 
which  it  proceeds.  Be  it  on  a  small,  or  on  a  large 
scale,  be  it  the  blowing  of  a  rose,  or  the  gorgeous 
death  of  the  forest  after  the  bloom  and  fulness  of 
summer,  the  process  is  as  quiet  as  Spring,  as  still  as 
Autumn. 

Were  connection  in  an  evolution  unnatural,  were  it 
whimsical  and  capricious,  the  impression  made  by  it 
would  be  very  different  from  what  it  actually  is.  — 
That  fortuitous  connection  of  parts,  of  which  atheism 
in  ancient  and  in  modern  times  makes  so  much,  is 
incompatible  with  the  doctrine  of  development.  — 
This  latter  requires  natural  and  adapted  connection, 
and  hence  a  presiding  intelligence  that  sees  and  pre- 
pares the  end  from  the  beginning.  It  is  indeed  true, 
that  the  idea  which  we  are  analyzing  has  been  em- 
ployed in  an  atheistic  manner,  and  enters  largely  into 
all  pantheistic  methods.  Of  this  we  shall  speak  here- 
after, and  against  it,  we  shall  endeavor  to  guard,  when 
examining  the  limitations  and  applications  of  the 
idea.  But  even  at  this  point  in  the  discussion,  it  is  very 
obvious,  that  provided  the  basis  and  germ  of  the 
evolution  is  not  supposed  to  be  self-originated,  but  is 
referred  to  the  fiat  of  a  Creator  who  is  entirely  above 
it,  and  out  of  it,  and  the  absolute  disposer  of  it ;  provided 

2* 


IS  T II  j;  r  II 1 1,  o  s  ( )  I'  1 1  V  ()  I-  HIS  r  o  ii  y . 

it  is  regarded  as  a  pure  creation  from  nothing,  then 
the  naturalness  of  the  sequences,  from  that  initial  point, 
furnishes  one  of  the  most  convincing  arguments 
against  the  doctrine  of  chance.  Were  there  merely 
hap-hazard  connection  without  inward  coherence, 
there  would  be  no  evidence  of  an  adaptive  power,  and 
an  intelligent  Author  of  the  process.  But  seeing,  as 
we  do,  in  every  genuine  evolution,  a  prophetic  antici- 
pation of  the  succeeding  in  every  element  of  the  pre- 
ceding, beholding,  as  we  do,  a  calm,  and,  as  it  were, 
semi-intelligent  progress  from  point  to  point,  in  this 
"  thing  of  life,"  the  notion  of  fortuity  is  banished  at 
once  from  the  mind. 

If  now  we  test  History  by  this  second  characteristic 
of  a  development,  we  again  see  the  coincidence  and 
identity  of  the  two  conceptions.  Nothing  is  more 
natural  in  its  connections  than  History.  Symmetrical 
gradations,  expected  transitions,  anticipated  termina- 
tions, appear  all  along  its  course.  Nothing  is  abrupt 
and  saltatory  in  the  historic  movement,  but  one  thing 
follows  on  after  another  with  all  the  ease  and  natural- 
ness of  physical  growth  itself.  There  are  convulsions 
and  revolutions  in  the  process,  it  is  true,  but  they  are 
always  prepared  for.  They  may  indeed,  and  they 
often  do,  burst  upon  the  notice  of  the  living  actors  in 
them  with  the  suddenness  and  crash  of  a  thunderbolt 


THE     !■  II  1  L  O  S  O  P  H  Y    OF    HISTORY.  19 

from  a  clear  sky,  but  it  is  because  the  living  actors  are 
unthinking  actors,  and  give  no  heed  to  the  significant 
premonitions.  The  student  of  History  however,  the 
reflecting  mind  that  is  not  so  caught  in  this  mighty 
stream  of  tendency  as  to  be  unable  to  rise  above  it  and 
see  the  historic  preparation,  is  never  startled  in  this 
manner.  He  sees  the  av^^ful  preparation  in  the  pre- 
ceding centuries  of  tyranny,  of  poverty,  of  ignorance, 
of  irreligion.  Upon  his  mind  it  is  no  sudden  shoot- 
ing of  a  meteor  from  the  depths  of  space  into  the 
totally  black  vault  of  night,  but  a  true  sun-rise.  For 
him,  "far  off  its  coming  shone."  Yet  the  student  sees 
only  what  really  exists.  He  does  not  make  history, 
but  finds  it ;  and  he  finds  it,  even  in  its  wildest  and 
apparently  most  capricious  sections,  a  genuine  unfold- 
ing or  series  of  natural  connections. 

3.  The  third  characteristic  of  a  development  is  the 
organic  connection  of  the  parts.  In  this  we  reach  the 
summit  of  the  series,  and  arrive  at  the  most  signifi- 
cant and  fruitful  property.  For  the  connection  be- 
tween two  things  may  be  both  necessary  and  natural, 
and  yet  not  organic.  Mechanical  connection  is  such. 
Take,  for  example,  two  cog  wheels  in  a  machine.  — 
Here  the  parts  are  necessarily  connected  ;  that  is,  they 
have  no  value  except  in  relation  to  each  other.  And 
they  are  naturally  connected ;  that  is,  they  are  adapted 


20  THE    P  11  1  1.  O  S  O  P  H  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

by  their  construction  to  play  into  each  other.  But 
there  is  no  higher  bond  than  tliis  merely  external  and 
mechanic  one.  There  is  connection,  but  no  inter- 
connection. The  term  "  organic,"  consequently,  merits 
fuller  examination  than  either  of  the  others  that  have 
been  employed  in  the  analysis. 

(a)  Perhaps  no  better  definition  of  an  organism, 
can  be  given,  than  that  of  Kant.  As  distinguished 
from  a  mechanism,  he  defines  it  as  "  a  product  in  which 
each  and  every  part  is,  reciprocally^  means  andend.''^* 
If  we  look  at  the  human  body,  for  example,  we  find 
that  each  constituent  portion  must  be  regarded,  now,  as 
the  sole  end  for  which  the  whole  exists,  and,  then 
again,  as  merely  the  means  or  instrument  by  which 
the  whole  exists.  The  flesh  in  one  aspect  of  it,  is  the 
end  for  which  the  functions  of  respiration,  circulation, 
secretion,  digestion,  and  locomotion,  are  carried  on.  — 
In  one  view  of  them,  all  these  great  processes  have  for 
their  sole  object  this  clothing  of  the  immortal  with  its 
mortality.  And  yet  we  see  again,  that  the  production 
of  this  tissue  is  itself  only  a  means  whereby  these 
systems  of  respiration,  circulation,  digestion,  and  secre- 
tion, are  themselves  kept  in  operation.  The  whole 
body  exists  for  the  eye,  as  truly  as  the  eye  exists  for 
the  whole  body;  for  if  this,  or  any  other,  member  be 

*  Urtheilskraft,  §  65. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  21 

maimed  or  mutilated,  the  entire  vital  force  of  the 
orofanism  is  at  once  subsidized  and  set  to  work  to 
repair  the  injury.  It  is  this  reciprocity  in  the  relation 
of  the  parts,  that  betokens  the  organic  connection. — 
It  is  this  existence  of  the  part  for  the  Avhole,  and  of 
the  whole  for  the  part,  that  sets  an  organism  so  much 
higher  up  the  scale  of  existence  than  a  mechanism. 

An  organic  development,  consequently,  be  it  within 
the  sphere  of  nature  or  of  mind,  is  one  in  which  all 
the  elements  and  agencies  mutually  relate  to  each 
other,  and  mutually  influence  each  other.  Intercom- 
munication, intermingling,  action  and  re-action ;  these 
and  such  like,  are  the  terms  that  set  our  thoughts  upon 
the  trail  of  such  a  constantly  shifting  and  changing 
process  as  that  of  an  expanding  germ.  For  it  is  be- 
cause the  conception,  which  we  are  endeavoring  to 
define,  is  so  full  of  pliant,  elastic,  and  interfusing, 
properties,  that  it  is  so  difficult  to  fix  it  in  language. 
It  is  because  the  word  "  development,"  is  so  allied  to 
that  other  most  inexplicable  word  "  life,"  that  a  writer 
has  done  the  best  that  can  be  done,  if,  by  his  approxi- 
mate statements,  he  has  merely  wakened  the  mind  to 
an  intimation  of  the  meaning,  and  set  it  musing  upon 
the  suggestive  but  mysterious  thought. 

(b)     Again,  this  action  and  re-action,  this  intercon- 
nection and  intermingling,  implies  inward  and  unceas- 


22  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

ing-  motion  in  an  organism.  Whenever  a  development 
comes  to  a  total  stop  it  comes  to  a  dead  stop. — 
Movement  is  inseparable  from  tire  conception,  and 
hence  the  adjective"  progressive"  is  always  connected 
with  the  substantive,  either  expressly  or  by  ellipsis. — 
The  notion  of  an  incessant  flux  and  reflux  of  the 
elements  and  properties,  is  as  inseparable  from  the 
idea  of  an  evolution,  as  it  is  incompatible  with  that 
of  artificial  composition.  In  the  instance  of  mechani- 
cal production,  the  motion  is  all  ab  extra ;  in  the  mind 
of  the  workman.  His  work,  after  all  that  his  inven- 
tive genius  has  done  to  it,  is  as  hard,  immobile,  and 
internally  dead,  as  it  ever  was.  It  has  in  it  nothing 
of  an  expansion,  because  the  living  principle  by  which 
it  was  originated  is  not  in  it,  but  in  the  mind  of  the 
mechanic.  This,  it  is  true,  is  a  living  thing,  a  living 
soul,  but  it  is  unable  to  breathe  itself,  as  a  principle  of 
growth  and  formation,  into  its  rigid,  wooden  or  metallic 
product.  The  story  of  Pygmalion  and  his  statue  is 
still  a  fable.  The  "breathing"  marble,  and  the 
"  glowing "  canvas  are  still,  and  ever,  figures  of 
speech.  No  product  of  finite  power  can  be  organic  ;  for 
there  is  no  pervasive  moulding  of  the  elements,  no 
assimilation  of  the  rudiments,  no  internal  stir  and  fu- 
sion, in  the  work  of  the  creature. 

(c)     Again,  an  organic  process  implies  potentiality, 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  23 

as  the  basis  of  it.  It  is  of  importance,  at  this  point,  to 
direct  attention  to  the  distinction  between  a  creation 
and  a  development,  and  thereby  preclude  the  panthe- 
istic employment  of  the  latter  idea.  A  development 
is  simply  the  unfolding  of  that  which  has  been  previ- 
ously folded  up,  and  not  the  origination  of  entity  from 
non-entity.  The  growth  of  a  germ  is  not  the  creation 
of  it,  but  is  merely  the  expansion  of  a  substance 
already  existing.  All  attempts,  therefore,  to  explain 
the  origin  of  the  universe  by  the  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment or  expansion,  like  the  Indian  Cosmogony,  drive 
the  mind  back  from  point  to  point  in  a  series  of  secon- 
dary evolutions,  still  leaving  the  inquiry  after  the 
primary  origin  and  actual  beginning  of  things  un- 
answered.  For  it  is  not  creation,  but  only  emanation, 
when  the  world  is  regarded  as  the  unfolding  of  an 
eternal  potency.  Such  a  conception  as  this  latter,  is, 
moreover,  metaphysically  absurd,  for  the  idea  of  un- 
developed being  has  no  rational  meaning  except  in  re- 
ference to  the  temporal  and  the  finite.  Progressive 
evolution  within  the  Divine  nature,  would  imply  a 
career  for  the  Deity  in  which  He  was  passing  from 
less  to  more  perfect  stages  of  existence,  and  would 
thus  bring  Him  within  the  realm,  of  the  relative  and 
conditioned.  Latency  is  necessarily  excluded  from 
the  Eternal  One,  by  virtue  of  that  absolute  perfection 


24        THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

and  metaphysical  self-completeness  whereby  his  being 
is  "  without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning."*  His 
uncreated  essence  is  incapable  of  self-expanding  pro- 
cesses, and  hence  the  created  universe  must  be  of  a 
secondary  'essence  which  is  the  pure  make  of  his 
sheer  j^af.  To  the  question,  therefore,  which  still  and 
ever  returns ;  "  how  does  this  potential  basis  come 
into  existence  ?  to  what,  or  to  whom,  do  these  germs 
of  future  and  unceasing  processes  owe  their  origin  ?  " 
the  theist  gives  but  one  answer.  He  applies  the 
doctrine  of  creation  out  of  nothing,  to  all  germinal 
substance  whatsoever. 

For  the  Deity,  though  self-complete  and  incapable 
of  development  himself,  has  yet  made  that  which  is 
potential  and  destined  to  an  unfolding.  He  has 
created  a  universe  that  is  full  of  latent  powers  and 
agencies.  The  works  of  his  hand  not  only  display 
excellence  in  the  very  first  moments  of  their  existence, 
but  reveal  a  still  more  marvellous  excellence  as  they 
unfold  and  evolve  their  interior  capacities.  The 
whole  progress  of  natural  science  is  a  gaze  of  admi- 
ration, and  should  be  an  anthem  of  adoration,  towards 

*  The  whole  fabric  of  modern  Pantheism  rests  upon  this  petitioprincipii, 
viz  :  that  the  doctrine  of  development  has  the  same  legitimate  applica- 
tion within  the  sphere  of  the  Infinite  and  Eternal,  that  it  has  within  that 
of  the  Finite  and  Temporal. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  25 

an  Architect  who  has  inlaid  that  which  is  still  more 
wonderful  than  what  appears  on  the  surface ;  who 
has  provided  in  the  single,  instantaneous,  creative,  act 
of  his  omnipotence,  for  an  evolution  which  is  to  run  on 
under  his  own  superintendence  *  through  all  coming 
ages,  until  stopped  by  the  same  miraculous  fiat.  — 
In  this  property  of  potentiality,  thus  strictly  defined 
and  distinguished,  we  have  one  of  the  most  absolute 
essentials  of  a  development.  If  this  conception  is  un- 
real, then  is  that  of  evolution.  If  we  cannot  conceive 
of,  and  believe  in,  the  previous  creation  and  deposit 
of  a  material,  in  order  that  it  may  be  used  at  a  future 
time,  of  the  implanting  of  a  principle  which  is  to  mani- 
fest itself,  it  may  be,  ages  ahead,  of  the  predetermina- 
tion of  a  process  and  a  preparation  for  it  long  before  it 
becomes  an  actuality  ;  if  all  such  ideas  as  these  are 
visionary,  and  all  such  thinking  as  this  has  no  corres- 
pondent in  the  world  of  reality ;  then  the  idea  of  an 
organic  development  is  inconceivable  and  absurd.  — 
The  best  argument  in  its  favor,  however,  would  be  to 
throw  it  all  away,  by  thinking  it  all  away,  and  then 

*  It  is  obvious  to  remark  here,  that  at  no  point  in  its  history  can  a 
created  existence  become  self-subsistent.  Hence  all  processes  of  devel- 
opment mu?t  be  regarded  as  conducted  beneath  a  maintaining  energy 
from  God,  which,  in  technical  phrase,  is  Providetice  in  distinction  from 
Creation.  The  predetermination  of  the  process,  and  the  preparation  for 
it,  in  the  same  technical  phraseology  is  the  Divine  Decree. 

3 


26       THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

seriously  ask  the  question,  "  what  solid  thing  is  now 
left  either  in  the  created  universe  of  nature  or  of 
mind  ?  "  Expel  the  fact  of  potency,  of  latent  powers 
and  principles,  from  the  sphere  of  the  Created,  in  which 
alone  as  we  have  remarked  above  it  has  any  applica- 
tion, and  nothing  is  left  but  the  phenomena  of  the 
instant,  or  a  world  of  shadows  and  spectra. 

(d)  Finally,  an  organic  development  implies, 
identity  and  sameness  of  original  substance  in  all  the 
phenomenal  changes  that  accompany  the  expanding 
process.  Those  who  have  confounded  the  idea 
which  we  are  defining,  with  that  of  creation,  have  also 
misapprehended  it  at  this  point.  The  gradual  advance 
in  an  evolution  from  something  old  to  something  new, 
is  not  a  progress  to  something  absolutely  new ;  i.  e., 
new  in  the  sense  of  never  having  had  any  sort  of  exist- 
ence before.  A  development  can  never  produce  any- 
thing absolutely  aboriginal.  The  Creator  alone  can 
do  this,  and  he  does  it  when  by  his  fiat  he  calls  the 
germ  with  all  its  potentiality  into  being.  An  evolu- 
tion cannot  add  an  iota  to  the  sum  of  created  substance. 
It  is  confined,  by  the  supernatural  and  creative  power 
that  called  its  germ  into  existence,  to  a  predetermined 
course  and  task ;  which  is  simply,  and  purely,  and 
exactly,  to  put  forth  what  has  been  put  in,  to  evolve 
just  what  has  been  involved. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  27 

It  follows,  consequently,  that  the  progressive  advance 
and  unfolding  which  is  to  be  seen  all  along  the  line 
of  a  development,  is  simply  the  expansion  over  a  wider 
surface  of  that  which  from  the  instant  of  its  creation  has 
existed  in  a  more  invisible  and  metaphysical  form.  The 
progress  or  gain  is  formal  and  not  material,  external 
and  not  internal,  visible  and  not  invisible.  Whether 
we  take  a  seed  like  the  acorn,  or  an  entity  like  the 
human  race,  it  is  evident  that  development  can  create 
no  new  primary  substance,  or  essential  principle,  in 
either.  The  utmost  which  the  vivific  life  in  each 
instance  can  do,  is  to  assimilate  already  existing  ma- 
terials in  order  to  its  own  manifestation.  The  last 
individual  oak  preserves  its  identity  of  substance,  and 
sameness  of  essential  principle,  with  the  first  acorn, 
and  the  generations  of  individual  men  are  not,  so 
many  hundred  millions  of  repetitions  of  the  creative 
act,  but  merely  a  serial  exhibition  of  the  result  of  the 
sing-le  fiat  in  Eden  ;  of  the  one  human  species,  or  com- 
mon substance  of  humanity,  with  the  origin  of  which, 
the  creation  ofmmiy  as  distinguished  from  his  propag-a- 
tion,  commenced  and  terminated.  For  if,  on  the  one 
hand,  there  were  an  annihilation  and  subtraction  of 
the  old  aboriginal  matter,  or,  on  the  other,  a  creation 
and  addition  of  a  new,  there  would  be  a  departure 
from  the  archetype,  and  the  tree  would   be  another 


28  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

than  the  oak,  and  the  individual  would  not  be  a  true 
specimen  of  humanity.  But  such  deviations  are  pre- 
cluded ;  for  this  potential  basis,  from  which  the  organic 
development  starts,  is  the  involution  that  contains,  not 
only  all  the  essential  substance  of  the  process,  but  also 
the  law  by  which  it  is  to  be  evolved  and  exhibited  ;  so 
that  while  there  is  unceasing  change  and  constant 
advance  in  the  outward  manifestation,  there  is  perfect 
identity  and  sameness  in  the  inward  essence. 

Passing,  now,  from  the  tangled  wilderness  of  analy- 
tic definition,  into  the  level  and  open  fields  of  appli- 
cation and  illustration;  if  we  test  History  by  this 
ihird  characteristic  of  a  development,  we  shall  see 
more  plainly  than  ever,  that  the  two  conceptions  agree 
with  each  other.  History  is  certainly  characterized  by 
reciprocal  action  in  its  elements.  Ideas,  principles, 
laws,  forces,  events,  and  men,  are  constantly  acting 
and  reacting  upon  each  other  from  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  a  historic  process.  Everything  influences 
everything.  Everything  receives  influence  from  every- 
thing. It  is  impossible  to  make  a  separation  between 
the  factors,  so  that  this  interaction  and  intermingling 
shall  stop  at  a  given  point.  Take  a  single  feature  of 
Secular  History,  for  illustration  the  Political  Kevolu 
tions,and  see  how  this  law  of  reciprocal  action  prevails 
The  idea  of    liberty,   promulgated  in  one  nation  be- 


THE    P  II  I  L  O  S  O  r  H  Y    OF    HISTORY.  29 

comes  the  realized  fact  in  another,  and  the  realized  fact, 
again,  becomes  the  stimulating  example  which  wakes 
the  slumbering  idea  in  a  third.  A  treatise  on  govern- 
ment by  Sydney  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  in 
monarchical  England,  finds  its  realization  in  the 
eighteenth  century  in  the  American  Constitution.  — 
This  concrete  example  repasses  the  Atlantic,  and  be- 
comes the  mightiest  of  the  forces  that  convulse  the 
old  feudal  monarchy  of  France,  and  the  most  influen- 
tial of  the  agencies  at  w^ork  in  Europe  for  the  political 
elevation  of  the  masses.  But  that  treatise  of  Sydney 
itself,  was  not  merely  the  propagator  of  influences  ;  it 
was  the  recipient  of  a  most  mighty  influence  coming 
down  from  the  remote  past.  The  cm-rents  of  Greek 
and  Roman  Republicanism  flowed  through  the  Eng- 
lish Republican.  The  political  brain  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  of  Brutus  the  Consul  and  Brutus  the  Patriot, 
was  the  brain  in  the  heart  of  Sydney. 

If  we  look  at  any  of  the  processes  in  the  natural 
world,  do  we  find  any  more  convincing  proofs  of 
interaction  and  reciprocity  of  agencies,  than  we  find 
in  the  world  of  human  society  ?  If  the  terms  action 
and  reaction  are  not  figurative  in  the  former  sphere,  are 
they  not  full  of  the  most  solid  meaning  in  the  latter? 
And  is  it  not  the  true  end  and  aim  of  tiie  student  of 
history,  to  make  this  play  of  living  agencies  and  iiifln- 

3* 


30  THE    r  H  I  L  O  S  O  P  II  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

ences  as  real  to  his  own  mind  and  feelings,  as  its  cor- 
respondent is  to  the  student  of  nature  ?  The  mudcrn 
naturalist  cannot  for  a  moment  believe  that  nature  is 
a  mechanism,  and  that  organism  is  a  fiction  and 
metaphor  in  this  realm.  A  thousand  treatises,  each  a 
thousand  times  more  ingenious  than  that  one  in  which 
Des  Cartes*  attempts  to  demonstrate  that  all  so-called 
vital  forces  in  the  lower  animals  are  in  reality  mechan- 
ical ones,  and  that  the  body  of  the  brute  is  as  much 
an  artificial  production  as  a  watch,  could  not  for  an 
instant  interrupt  the  sure  belief  of  the  natural  philoso- 
pher, that  the  physical  world  exhibits  in  all  parts  of  it 
a  process  of  organic  expansion,  and  that  natural  objects 
are  the  products  of  a  law  of  life  and  growth.  The 
conviction  that  there  is  an  internal  and  not  merely 
fanciful  analogy  between  the  worlds  of  nature  and  of 
mind,  so  that  the  same  fundamental  law  of  expansion 
prevails  in  both,  should  firmly  possess  the  mind  of 
the  inquirer  in  the  department  of  human  history.  — 
The  relation  between  the  subjective  principle  and  the 
outward  stimuli  is  precisely  the  same  in  one  instance 
as  in  the  other.  Is  there  any  more  real  reciprocal 
relation  between  the  tropical  Fauna  or  Flora,  and 
the  temperature,    amount   of   atmospheric   moisture, 

*  "  He  denied  the  supermatcrialism  of  animal  life  as  many  are  now 
denying  the  supernaturalism  of  Christianity."  Twestcn's  Dogmatik.1. 318. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  31 

elevation  of  the  land  above  the  sea,  prevailing  winds, 
amount  of  sun  light,  geological  formation,  and  soil, 
of  the  tropical  regions  ;  than  there  is  between  the 
Celtic,  Gothic,  and  Roman  components  of  national 
character,  the  insular  isolating  residence,  the  influence 
of  Greek  and  Roman  literatures,  of  commerce,  of  the 
Christian  religion,  of  the  intestine  wars  of  the  Roses 
and  the  wars  for  foreign  conquest ;  between  all  these 
historical  elements  and  agencies  ;  and  the  historical 
development  of  England  ?  Ought  not  the  analysis 
and  contemplation  of  this  reciprocity  of  agencies  to 
produce  the  same  sense  of  organic  connections,  the 
same  fresh  feeling  of  a  living  process,  and  the  same 
enthusiastic  wonder,  with  which  the  naturalist  exam- 
ines material  nature  ;  with  which  a  Gilbert  White 
minutely  surveys  physical  nature  within  the  limits  of 
his  rural  parish  ;  with  which  a  Humboldt  surveys  the 
cosmos  ?  * 

*  "  Those  truths  are  always  most  valuable  which  are  most  historical, 
that  is,  which  tell  us  most  about  the  past  and  future  states  of  the  object 
to  which  they  belong.  In  a  tree,  for  instance,  it  is  more  important  to 
give  the  appearance  of  energy  and  elasticity  in  the  limbs  which  is  indi- 
cative of  growth  and  life,  than  any  particular  character  of  leaf,  or  texture 
of  bough.  It  is  more  important  that  we  should  feel  that  tlic  uppermost 
sprays  are  creeping  higher  and  higher  into  the  sky,  and  be  impressed 
with  the  current  of  life  and  motion  which  is  animating  every  fibre,  than 
that  we  should  view  the  exact  pitch  of  relief  with  which  those  fibres  are 


'S2  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

Again,  is  not  History  like  any  other  organic  devel- 
o)3ment,  characterized  by  an  inward  and  unceasing 
movement?  Is  there  any  stagnation  or  immobility 
in  it?  Seize  the  process  of  human  life  at  any  point 
you  please,  and  do  you  not  find  it  stfrring  like  a  force 
and  beating  like  a  pulse  ?  Even  the  most  externally 
motionless  period  has  its  fierce  passions  and  intense 
emotions.  The  darkest  of  the  Dark  Ages,  the  more  it 
is  studied,  the  more  is  it  seen  to  have  a  human  interest. 
The  most  stagnant  stratum  of  the  Dead  Sea  undulates. 
It  has  been  said  that  the  savage  has  no  history ;  that 
there  is  in  this  form  of  society  only  a  dead  monotony 
unenlivened  by  the  play  of  human  feelings  and  the 
struggle  of  human  passions.  But  this  is  not  so. — 
As,  according  to  Dr.  Johnson,  the  biography  of 
the  most  unimportant  individual  on  the  globe,  were 

thrown  out  against  the  sky.  For  the  first  truths  tell  us  tales  about  the 
tree,  about  what  it  has  been,  and  will  be,  while  the  last  are  characteristic 
of  it  only  in  its  present  state,  and  are  in  no  way  talkative  about  them- 
selves. Talkative  facts  are  always  more  interesting  and  more  import- 
ant than  silent  ones.  So  again  the  lines  in  a  crag  which  mark  its  strati- 
fication, and  how  it  has  been  washed  and  rounded  by  water,  or  t\visted 
and  drawn  out  in  fire,  are  more  important,  because  they  tell  more  than 
the  stains  of  the  lichens  wliich  change  year  by  year,  and  the  accidental 
fissures  of  frost  or  decomposition  ;  not  but  that  both  of  these  are  histori- 
cal, but  historical  in  a  less  distinct  manner  and  for  shorter  periods." 
—  Modern  Painters,  I.  chap.  vi. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF     HISTORY.  33 

it  fully  written  out  so  that  the  life  should  appear 
just  and  fully  as  it  was,  would  overflow  with  interest 
and  entertainment  for  all  men,  so  the  real  every-day 
life  of  even  a  savage  horde  would  be  an  addition  to 
Universal  History  that  would  waken  earnest  attention. 
Who  would  not  eagerly  peruse  the  history  of  a  noma- 
dic Tartar  tribe,  if  it  were  written  with  the  simple  and 
minute  fidelity  of  a  chronicle  of  Froissart?*  Who 
would  not  even  spare  some  of  the  more  outwardly  im- 
posing sections  of  General  History,  if  in  their  place  he 
could  have  a  true  unvarnished  tale  of  the  wanderings 
of  one  of  those  Scythian  or  Celtic  races  who  were  the 
first  to  come  westward  from  Central  Asia,  the  birth- 
place and  cradle  of  mankind  ?  What  a  charm  and  a 
light  would  be  thrown  over  the  earlier  history  of 
Greece  and  Rome,  if  a  veritable  account  of  one  or 
more  branches  of  that  great  Pelasgic  race ;  that  savage 
source  of  "  the  Beauty  that  was  Greece  and  the 
Grandeur  that  was  Rome "  should  be  discovered 
among  the  manuscripts  of  a  cloister  ? 

But  the  secret  of  the  charm,  which  is  thus  felt  in 
any  and  every  section  of  human  history,  lies  in  the  fact 
that  there  is  an  unceasing  movement,  an  incessant 
stir  and  fermentation,  in  each  and  every  section.     The 

*  One  of  the  most  unique  and  thrilling  papers  of  Dc  Quinccy  is  "  The 
flightof  a  Tartar  Tribe." 


34  THE  PHILOSOPHY  of  history. 

ocean  itself  is  not  more  unresting  than  the  history  of 
man.  The  oceanic  currents  are  not  more  distinct  and 
unmistakable  than  those  streams  of  tendency  which 
sway  eastward  and  westward,  northward  and  south- 
ward, in  the  migration  of  nations,  in  the  rise  and  de- 
cline of  civilizations,  in  the  founding  and  fall  of 
empires,  in  the  alternations  of  national  glory-  and 
decay.  Motion,  both  internal  and  external,  is  the 
characteristic  which  first  impresses  the  historical 
student.  In  passing  from  other  domains  of  inquiry 
into  this,  he  finds  himself  to  be  coming  out  from  quiet 
vales  into  the  region  of  storms ;  from  the  place  of 
secured  results  and  garnered  products,  into  the  place 
of  active  preparation  and  production.  In  the  sphere 
of  Poetry,  there  is  only  the  still  air  and  golden  light  of 
setting  suns.  In  the  sphere  of  Science,  the  mind  is  in 
the  serene  region  of  pure  thought.  But  in  History, 
the  inquirer  comes  out  into  the  world  of  agencies, 
actors,  and  actions,  where  everything  is  under  motion, 
and,  in  the  Baconian  phrase,  all  "  resounds  like  the 
mines." 

Again,  does  not  History,  like  any  other  organic 
process,  rest  upon  a  basis  of  potentiality  ?  Human 
life  is  the  Old  in  the  New  ;  the  old  being  in  a  new 
aspect.  History  does  not  create  its  wealth  and  variety 
of  material  as  it  goes  along,  but  merely  expands  a 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  35 

varied  latency  that  was  originated  when  the  morning 
stars  sang  together.  Potentiality  meets  us  at  every 
point,  and  accounts  for  the  lights  and  shadows  of  the 
"  pictured  page."  National  differences  and  peculiarities, 
and  consequently  all  that  is  unique  and  distinctive  in 
the  career  of  nations,  must  be  referred  to  a  provision 
made  therefor  in  the  day  of  man's  creation.  Compare 
the  Rome  of  the  age  of  Numa  Pompilius  with  the 
Rome  of  the  age  of  Augustus  Ca^^ar,  and  while  the 
latter  displays  elements  and  characteristics  that  had 
lain  so  entirely  dormant,  in  preceding  sections  of  this 
national  history, that  if  Rome  had  gone  out  of  political 
existence  in  the  struggle  with  the  Samnite  or  the 
Carthaginian  the  human  mind  never  would  have 
known  of  their  existence,  yet  would  they  for  this 
reason  not  have  been  real  entities  ?  It  is  indeed  true, 
that  they  would  not  have  been  manifested,  but  would 
they  not  just  as  really  have  been  rudiments  in  that 
original  political  germ  or  basis  for  a  nation,  which, 
whether  completely  unfolded  or  not,  had  a  wholeness 
and  rounded  capacity  of  its  own,  because  it  was  an 
integral  part  of  the  "  good  "  and  perfect  creation  of 
God,  in  the  day  that  "  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of 
the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils 
the  breath  of  life  ?  "  A  potential  existence  is  by  no 
means  an  imaginary  or  fictitious  one.      A  germ  may 


36  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

not  be  permitted  to  run  its  course  of  evolution,  and 
display  all  its  marvellous  inlay  of  elements  and  indi- 
viduals ;  but  it  is  none  the  less  a  fixed  quantity  by 
itself,  and  must  be  estimated  by  what  it  was  primarily 
endowed  with  by  the  Creator.  If  a  race  should  be 
stopped  short  in  mid-career,  by  the  same  fiat  that 
created  it  in  the  beginning,  its  dignity  and  standing 
in  tlie  scale  of  universal  being  would  have  to  be  de- 
termined by  its  created  capacities;  not  by  what  had 
actually  come  forth,  but  by  what  had  been  originally 
put  in ;  by  the  amount  of  life  and  the  quantum  of 
varied  latency  that  had  been  primarily  summed  up 
in  it. 

It  is  by  virtue  of  this  potential  basis  that  History 
exhibits  that  union  of  two  opposite  properties,  perma- 
nence and  progression,  which  is  so  baffling  to  the 
mind.  It  has  a  permanent  identity  and  sameness, 
because  it  exhibits  the  same  species  of  being  and  the 
same  eternal  truth  in  all  its  sections.  It  also  presents 
a  constant  variety  and  change,  because  it  shows  this 
same  human  nature,  and  this  same  common  verity, 
in  new  forms.  Each  age  and  period  is  as  fresh  and 
original  in  its  appearance,  as  if  it  were  the  first  in  the 
series,  and  looked  upon  the  new  earth  for  the  first 
time  that  it  was  ever  looked  upon,  and  lived  the  first 
hutnan  life  that  ever  was  lived.       This  co-inherence 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  37 

and  co-working  of  the  two  factors,  of  the  Old  and  the 
New,  of  the  Conservatism  and  the  Progress,  is  the  very 
essence  of  History.  It  is  difficidt,  we  are  aware,  to 
seize  and  hold  both  conceptions  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  as  the  constant  debate  between  the  man  of  Con- 
servatism and  the  man  of  Progress  shows.  It  is  easy 
and  natm-al  to  separate  what  God  has  joined  together, 
and  to  make  choice  of  the  one  or  of  the  other  charac- 
teristic, as  the  key  to  all  History  and  the  foundation 
of  all  practical  life  and  action.  It  is  simpler  to  say 
that  History  is  permanent  without  progress,  or  else 
that  it  is  progressive  without  permanence,  than  to  say 
that  it  is  a  true  development  and  therefore  both  perma- 
nent and  progressive.  The  extremists  upon  both  sides 
have  a  much  easier  task  than  the  one  who  occupies 
the  central  position  between  them.  A  simple  idea  is 
much  easier  to  define  and  manage  than  a  complex 
one.  But  it  is  not  so  fertile,  so  prolific,  or  so  com- 
pletely true.  If  simplicity  and  facility  of  management 
were  all  that  the  philosopher  has  to  care  for,  the  great 
comprehensive  ideas  of  science  would  soon  disappear; 
for  they  are  neither  uncomplex  nor  facile.  "  The 
simplest  of  governments,"  says  Webster  while  defend- 
ing the  excellent  complexity  of  republicanism,  "  is  a 
despotism."  The  simplest  of  theories  is  the  theory  of 
an  extremist. 

4 


38  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

We  have  now  s:iven  a  theoretic  answer  to  the  first 
of  the  two  questions  which  met  us  in  the  outset,  viz., 
What  is  the  abstract  idea  of  History  ?  by  specifying 
the  chief  characteristics  of  a  process  of  development, 
and  pointing  out  their  identity  with  those  of  an  his- 
torical process.  It  is  not  pretended  that  this  analysis  and 
comparison  is  a  complete  one,  and  that  nothing  more 
could  be  said  upon  the  subject ;  that  it  is  a  perfectly  clear 
one  and  could  not  be  made  more  lucid.  Yet  no  one  who 
has  ever  made  the  attempt ;  an  attempt  much  more 
common  now,  than  it  was  in  the  last  century  when  a 
different  intellectual  method  prevailed ;  to  treat  a 
subject  pliysiolofficalli/*  will  he  hasty  to  complain  of 
the  lack  of  thoroughness,  or  especially  of  plainness. — 
Let  any  one  peruse  the  tracts  and  treatises,  composed 
by  many  able  minds  within  the  last  twenty  years, 
upon  this  general  subject  of  progressive  development, 
and  observe  their  comparative  vagueness,  and  he  will 
be  convinced  that  it  is,  intrinsically,  one  of  the  most 
difficult  subjects  to  discuss,  in  the  whole  philosophical 
catalogue.  For  it  implies  the  idea  of  life ;  one  of  the 
most  familiar,  and  at  the  same  time  most  mysterious 
and  baffling,  of  all  ideas.     It  necessitates  a  physiologi- 

*  The  term  is  employed  in  its  etymological  meaning;  to  denote  h 
method  which  proceeds  from  the  doctrine,  or  rationale,  o{  the  intiiiisi*- 
nature  of  an  object. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  39 

cal  or  di/namic  method  of  treating  the  subject;  a 
method  which  compels  the  mind,  if  we  may  so  say, 
to  a  subterranean  labor  and  examination  ;  a  method 
therefore  that  precludes  that  liveliness  of  mental  move- 
ment, that  perfect  distinctness  of  statement,  and  es- 
pecially that  opulence  of  illustration  and  bright  spark- 
ling diction  and  style,  which  are  characteristic  of  a 
more  outward  mode  of  investigation.  To  trace  a  law 
of  life,  is  a  far  more  difficult  and  arduous  attempt  for 
authorship,  than  to  draw  a  beautiful  picture.  To 
work  the  mind  slowly,  pertinaciously,  and  thoroughly, 
into  a  deep  central  process  of  development,  running 
like  a  magnetic  current  through  ages  of  time,  winding 
here,  thwarted  there,  uprearing  itself  and  coming  forth 
in  reformations  and  revolutions,  and  then  retiring 
down  into  such  depths  of  dormancy  and  slumber  that 
its  re-awakening  seems  almost  an  impossibility;  to 
treat  History  in  this  profound  and  dynamic  manner,  is 
far  more  difficult,  than  by  the  aid  of  a  versatile  mind  and 
a  lively  fancy  to  cause  a  series  of  brilliant  pictures,  of 
dazzling  dissolving  views,  to  pass  with  rapidity  before 
the  mind  of  a  rapid  reader.  But  which  method  is  the 
most  fruitful  and  fertilizing  ?  Which  is  most  sugges- 
tive ?  Which  is  best  adapted  for  the  foundation  of  a 
course  of  study  and  investigation  ?  Which  is  capable 
of  an  unlimited  expansion,  and  influence  upon  the 


40  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OP    HISTORY. 

mind  of  a  student  ?     Grant   that,  in    the  beginning, 

• 

both  the  writer  and  the  reader  feel  the  need  of  fur- 
ther reflection  and  still  plainer  statements,  so  that 
there  is  a  sort  of  unsatisfaction  in  both  ;  yet  is  not 
this  very  unrest,  a  thorn  and  spur  to  still  more  pro- 
found and  clear  intuitions  ?  This  is  one  great  ben- 
efit to  be  derived  from  the  adoption,  and  reception 
into  the  mind,  of  an  idea  like  that  of  development.  — 
Its  meaning  is  not  so  entirely  vipon  the  surface,  and 
so  level  to  the  most  thoughtless  comprehension,  that 
he  who  runs  may  read  it,  and  exhaust  its  whole  sig- 
nificance in  a  twinkling.  There  is  ever  something  in 
reserve,  something  still  to  be  pondered  over,  something 
still  to  be  more  distinctly  elucidated  and  stated.  The 
idea  is  itself  a  seed  sown  in  the  mind,  having  an  end- 
less power  of  germination  and  fructification.  A  seed 
is  not  so  striking  or  so  sparkling  an  object  as  a  dia- 
mond; it  does  not  make  such  an  instantaneous  im- 
pression, and  it  is  a  thousandfold  more  full  of  mystery. 
But  while  the  gem  merely  flickers  its  cold  glittering 
flashes,  generation  after  generation,  upon  the  single 
brow  of  beauty  or  of  pride,  the  seed  is  repeating  itself 
in  the  harvests  of  a  continent,  in  the  physical  comfort 
and  thereby  the  general  weal  of  a  race.  Easiness  of 
immediate  apprehension,  distinctness  and  vivacity  of 
first  statement,  facility  of  being  managed,  ought  all 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  41 

to  be  set  second  to  depth,  comprehensiveness  of  scope, 
richness  and  variety  of  contents,  and  fertility  of  influ- 
ence, when  selecting  an  idea  that  is  to  constitute  the 
basis  of  a  department  of  knowledge,  and  guide  the  in- 
vestigations of  a  student  through  its  whole  long  and 
wide  domain.  It  is  for  this  reason,  and  not  because  a 
more  perspicacious  and  facile  method  could  not  be 
selected,  that  we  desire  in  the  beginning  to  explain 
so  far  as  is  possible,  and  to  recommend,  what  has  been 
termed  the  theory  of  genetic  development,  as.  the 
one  which  has  most  affinity  with  the  real  nature  of 
History,  and  which  consequently  is  the  best  organuii  or 
instrument  for  its  investigal  ion.  The  great  change  thar 
has  taken  place,  within  the  present  century,  in  the 
way  of  conceiving  and  constructing  History,  is  owing 
to  the  adoption,  and  use,  of  a  method  that  was  foreign 
to  the  mind  and  the  intellectual  tendencies  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  One  only  needs  to  compare 
history  like  ihat  of  Dr.  Robertson  with  history  like 
that  of  Dr.  Arnold,  or  history  like  that  of  Gibbon  with 
history  like  that  of  Niebuhr,  to  see  that  from  some 
cause  or  other,  a  great  change  has  come  over  the  de- 
partment within  fifty  years.  There  is  no  improve- 
ment in  respect  to  style.  For  who  has  excelled  the 
clean  purity  of  Robertson's  diction,  the  elegant  sim- 
plicity of  Hume's  narrative,  the  harmonious  yet  ener- 

4* 


42  THE    P  1 1  I  I,  O  S  O  P  JI  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

getic  pomp  of  Gibbon's  description  ?  Perhaps  there  is, 
in  general,  a  falling  off  in  respect  to  formal  properties. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  is  there  not  a  vast  improve- 
ment in  all  the  material  properties  of  historical  com- 
position ?  Is  not  the  point  from  which  men  and 
events  are  now  contemplated,  far  more  central  and 
commanding  ?  Is  not  much  more  made  of  prevailing 
ideas,  general  tendencies,  prominent  individualities, 
in  short  of  the  germs  and  dynamic  forces  of  History, 
than  was  made  during  the  last  century  ?  Are  not  the 
lessons  of  this  science  far  more  impressive  and  solemn 
now,  than  they  were  as  taught  in  1750  ?  Is  not  the  de- 
partment itself  exerting  an  influence  upon  other 
departments,  far  more  modifying  and  transforming 
than  formerly  ?  In  short,  if  History  may  have  lost 
something  of  that  elegance  and  transparency  which 
characterizes  a  product  of  art,  has  it  not  gained  far 
more  of  that  vitality,  and  power  of  influential  impres- 
sion, which  belongs  to  a  product  of  nature  ?  The 
cause  of  this  change,  in  the  spirit  and  influence  of  the 
department,  is  traceable  directly  to  a  growing  disposi- 
tion to  regard  the  history  of  Man.  as  well  as  that 
of  Nature,  as  an  organic  process,  and  consequently 
as  subject  to  a  law  of  life  and  growth.  Indeed  it  is 
noticeable,  that  this  change  has  come  in  contempora- 
neously with  a  corresponding  change  in  the  method 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  43 

of  contemplating  Nature  itself.  As  Natural  Science 
has  become  more  dynamic,  so  has  History.  The  nat- 
uralist of  the  present  day  is  not  willing,  like  his  pre- 
decessor a  century  ago,  to  regard  life  as  the  result  of 
organization,  and  then  to  explain  organization  into  a 
very  curious  and  recondite  arrangement  of  atomic 
matter.  Mysterious  as  the  principle  itself  may  be,  the 
modern  investigator  now  prefers  to  assume  a  vital  prin- 
ciple, as  the  origin  and  cause  of  all  organization,  and  of 
all  those  external  phenomena  which  were  once  ex- 
plained according  to  the  mechanical  view  and  theory  of 
nature.  For  though  he  starts  with  a  mystery  which  pro- 
bably he  can  never  clear  up,  yet  he  thereby  introduces 
a  clearness,  a  consistency,  a  naturalness  and  vitality, 
into  all  the  facts  and  phenomena  of  his  science,  which 
were  never  attained  by  the  elder  naturalists.  His 
intellectual  selfdenial  i)i  the  beginning,  is  rewarded 
richly  in  the  end.  In  like  manner,  the  historian,  by 
taking  upon  himself  the  severer  task  of  regarding 
History  as  a  process  of  living  moral  development,  and 
of  penetrating  into  its  intricate  organic  connections,  is 
in  the  end  rewarded  for  his  disposition  to  be  thorough 
and  profound,  by  finding  the  subject  of  his  investiga- 
tions far  more  prolific  and  impressive  than  it  ever  was 
before.  He  is  also  rewarded  by  finding  that  this 
philosophic  method,  exacting  as  it  is,  in  the  beginning, 


44        THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

upon  the  closest  reflection  and  strictest  discipline  of 
the  mind,  in  the  end  throws  a  clear  light  upon  those 
deeper  and  darker  portions  of  History,  upon  which  not 
a  ray  of  light  is  cast  by  a  more  superficial  and  easy 
mode  of  examination. 

Inasmuch,  as  the  department  of  Church  History  has 
felt  the  influence  of  the  dvnamic  method,  much  more 
thoroughly  than  other  portions  of  the  history  of  Man 
have  as  yet,  and  the  Church  Historian  been  the 
most  successful  in  applying  the  doctrine  of  develop- 
ment to  historical  materials,  we  shall,  in  the  remainder 
of  this  lecture,  draw  our  illustrations  from  this  branch 
of  the  general  subject. 

One  of  the  most  valuable  results,  of  the  application 
of  the  idea  of  an  organic  process,  is  seen  in  that  part 
of  Ecclesiastical  History  which  is  denominated  the 
History  of  Doctrine.  This  may  be  said  to  have  come 
into  existence  since  the  adoption  of  the  physiological 
method.  It  is  indeed  true  that  the  more  thoughtful 
of  the  ecclesiastical  historians  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, such  as  Mosheim  and  the  elder  Planck,  recog- 
nize the  influence  of  particular  doctrines,  upon  that 
course  of  external  events  to  which  they  gave  most 
attention  ;  but  they  usually  connect  the  doctrine,  or 
the  truth,  with  some  individual  of  strong  or  passionate 
character,  from  whom,  more  than   from  the  truth  or 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  HISTORY.        45 

doctrine,  the  influence  upon  men  and  things  proceeds. 
Hence  in  treating  of  the  Reformation,  for  example,  a 
disproportionate  weight  is  attached  to  the  personal 
religious  force  and  wants  of  a  single  individual  like 
Luther,  or  to  the  personal  intellectual  culture  and 
aspirations  of  an  Erasmus;  to  the  undervaluation  of 
that  great  scripture  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith, 
which,  together  with  the  general  religious  craving  of 
the  age,  in  which  a  Luther  shared  so  slrongly  and  an 
Erasmus  so  feebly,  was  the  true  historic  ground  of  the 
movement,  the  real  central  historic  force.  It  is  not 
enough  to  trace  the  processes  of  history  to  individual 
influence.  This  pi'agmatic  method,  as  it  has  been 
termed,  must  rest  upon  that  genetic  one  of  which 
we  are  speaking  ;  for  the  individual  is  rooted  in  the 
general,  and  all  this  influence  of  historical  char- 
acters has  a  deeper  ground  in  historic  ideas,  truths, 
and  doctrines.  But  this  was  not  seen  and  acted 
upon,  until  the  mind  of  the  historian  was  led  down 
to  the  doctrines  themselves,  as  the  ultimate  sources 
and  causes.  The  step  taken  by  writers  like  Mosheim, 
Walch,  and  Planck,  in  sacred  history,  and  Hume, 
Robertson,  and  Gibbon,  in  secular,  was  one  in 
advance,  but  was  not  the  ultimate  one.  It  was 
something  valuable,  to  connect  the  external  series  of 
events    and    phenomena   with    the    characters,  opin- 


46  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

ions,  and  acts  of  prominent  individuals,  but  it  was 
something  invaluable,  because  indispensable  to  a  truly 
philosophic  history,  to  connect  events,  phenomena, 
prominent  individuals  themselves,  together  with  the 
ages  and  great  tendencies  which  they  represented, 
with  the  great  standing  truths  of  reason  and  revela- 
tion, and  the  plans  and  purposes  of  that  Supreme 
Being  who  is  the  author  and  revealer  of  all. 

This  step  was  taken,  when  the  historian  began  to 
conceive  and  construct  the  facts  of  history,  on  the 
method  of  a  genetic  development.  He  then  began, 
as  this  term  denotes,  to  trace  theg-enesis  of  the  process ; 
to  seize  it  in  its  very  deepest  source  and  lowest  place 
of  origin.  This  necessarily  compelled  him  to  go 
beyond  not  merely  the  external  events  themselves,  but 
also  their  connection  with  leading  individuals,  down 
to  the  first  springs  of  history  in  the  plans  and  pur- 
poses of  God,  and,  in  Church  History  especially,  to 
the  truths  and  doctrines  which  God  has  revealed  in 
his  written  word,  as  the  germ  and  measure  of  all 
true  development.  For  it  is  plain  that,  so  long  as  the 
historian  confined  himself  to  the  external  occurrences, 
and  their  comparatively  superficial  relation  to  individ- 
ual men,  he  was  still  at  a  great  distance  from  the  real 
causes  and  forces  of  history ;  from  the  absolute 
centre  and  origin  of  its  processes.  Notwithstanding  all 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  47 

his  pretensions  to  a  philosophic  treatment  of  the  sub- 
ject, he  was  still  at  work  in  an  upper  stratum,  and 
busied  with  secondary  agencies.  He  could  reach  the 
ultimate  foundation  of  the  whole  historic  superstruc- 
ture, only  by  sinking  a  deeper  shaft,  and  getting  below 
events,  and  individual  actions,  to  the  revealed  ideas 
and  designs  of  God.  For  here  is  the  origin,  and  this 
is  the  genesis.  There  is  no  source  more  ultimate 
than  this.  The  historian  who  starts  from  this  point, 
starts  from  the  final  centre. 

We  cannot,  perhaps,  more  appropriately  conclude 
this  enunciation  of  the  abstract  idea  of  development, 
than  by  directing  attention,  for  a  moment,  to  that 
Church  Historian  who  has  employed  it  more  persist- 
ently, and  successfully,  than  any  other  investigator, 
secular  or  ecclesiastical.  The  Church  History  of 
Neander,is  an  embodiment  of  the  idea  of  development. 
It  is  organized  throughout  by  this  single  thought. — 
And  the  organization  is  most  thorough.  It  pervades 
each  historic  section  ;  the  external  history,  the  history 
of  polity,  of  worship,  of  morality,  of  doctrine.  Each 
of  these  sections  exhibits  an  expanding  process  of 
evolution,  either  upward  or  downward.  Each  of  these 
is  reciprocally  related  to  all  the  others,  so  that  the 
whole,  eventually,  are  lightly  but  firmly  bound  together 
into  a  greater  organism.     We  do  not  assert  that  the 


48        THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

idea  of  the  Christian  Religion,  as  Neander  conceives 
it  in  his  own  mind,  is  so  exactly  conformed"  to  the 
New  Testament  representation,  that  tlie  constructing 
principle  of  his  history  is  entirely  free  from  defective 
qualities.  This  would  be  saying  more  than  can  be 
of  any  uninspired  mind.  The  most  reverent  admirer 
of  this  devout  historian,  must  acknowledge  that  his 
construction  of  Church  History  is  affected  by  sub- 
jective elements,  that  his  apprehension  of  Christianity 
is  sometimes  unfavorably  modified  by  the  age  and 
country  in  which  he  lived,  and  especially  by  the  type 
of  culture  into  which  he  was  born  and  bred.  But  all 
this  can  be  said,  and  should  be  as  we  believe,  with- 
out denying  the  substantial  correctness  of  the  idea 
which  impelled  and  guided  his  mind  in  the  composi- 
tion of  his  work,  or  imputing  to  him  any  more 
material  errors,  than  the  scientific  mind  is  always 
liable  to. 

Without,  therefore,  entering  upon  any  detailed 
criticism  of  Neander's  conception  of  Christianity, 
which  would  involve  a  criticism  of  the  whole  work,  we 
wish  merely  to  allude  to  the  remarkable  perseverance, 
and  tenacity,  with  which  it  is  employed  in  the  detec- 
tion, analysis,  and  synthesis,  of  the  historic  processes 
themselves.  That  monotony,  which  is  complained  of 
by  a  class  of  critics  whose  aesthetic  feeling  is  stronger 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  49 

than  their  philosophic,  is  the  monotony  of  organization. 
The  types  of  organic  life  are  necessarily  few.     Nature 
herself,  is  but  slightly  varied  and  variegated  within  this 
sphere.     It  is  only  in  the  clothing  of  her  few  archety- 
pal forms,  that  she  exhibits  the  pomp,  and  prodigality, 
of  her  luxuriance.     It  is  true  that  Neander's  method 
is  uniform.      "We    know  beforehand  what  the  treat- 
ment of  each  section    will  be.     We  know  that  each 
subject     will    be    handled    under    the    same     fixed 
number   of   topics  and  categories ;    that    each    mass 
of  material,  like  iron  in   a  rolling  mill,  will  be  run 
through  the  same  number  and  sequence  of  grooves. 
But  this  very  rigor  in  the  use  of  one  idea,   and  the 
prosecution  of  one  plan,  imparts,  to  the  product  result- 
ing from  it.  an  interest  for  the  thinking  mind,  far  higher 
than    any  merely  aesthetic  interest  can  ever  be,  and 
what  is  still  more,  renders  it  a  far  more  instructive 
and  influential  work  for  the  intellect  of  a  student, 
than  can  be  originated  on  the   other  method  of  his- 
torical composition.     It  is  for  this  reason,  therefore, 
that  while  the  history  of  Neander  has  less  interest  for 
him  who  is  attracted  chiefly  by  the  secular  aspects  of 
Christianity,  it  has  all  the  more  for  him  who  knows  that 
its  spiritual  aspects  are  its  distinguishing  and  essential 
ones.     He  who  sees  in  Christianity,  merely  or  mainly, 
a  religion  or  an  institute    that  has    exerted  a  most 

5 


50  TlIK    I'H  II.  OSOI' II  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

favorable  influence  upon  literature,  science,  and  art; 
upon  civilization,  government,  and  the  physical  im- 
provement of  mankind  ;  will  be  dissatisfied  with  this 
author's  account  of  it.  For  Neander  was  but  little, 
too  little,  interested  in  these  civilizing,  and  intellectual, 
influences.  But  he  who  sees  in  Christianity,  first  of 
all  and  last  of  all,  a  moral  and  spiritual  power,  des- 
tined by  its  Divine  Author  to  regenerate  the  inmost 
heart  of  humanity,  and  hence  intended  to  affect  pri- 
marily the  eternal  interests  of  mankind,  will  find  this 
stern  aesthetic  indifference,  and  naked  but  lofty  spirit- 
ualism, of  the  Historian,  all  the  more  imposing  and 
impressive.  For  he  passes  through  the  pomps  and 
splendors  that  thicken  and  trail  along  the  march  of 
Christianity,  as  St.  Paul  did  through  the  temples  and 
sculptures  of  Athens,  or  the  porticos  and  triumphal 
arches  of  Rome  ;  with  an  eye  too  intently  fixed  upon 
more  unutterable  realities  and  more  awful  splendors, 
to  be  attracted,  much  less  dazzled,  by  things  seen  and 
temporal.  To  one  who  seeks  to  know  Christianity  in 
its  own  living  moral  nature,  with  few  or  none  of  its 
secular  adjuncts,  the  close  and  powerful  method  of 
Neander  is  exceedingly  welcome,  and  exceedingly 
suggestive  and  fertile.  And  while  the  student  of 
Church  History  is  never  to  be  a  servile  recipient  of 
all  the  views  of  any  mind,  however  learned  or  con- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  51 

templative,  we  think  it  may  safely  be  said,  that,  from 
the  existing  literature  in  this  department,  no  single 
work  can  be  selected,  which  so  well  deserves  as 
does  this,  to  be  made  both  a  resort,  and  a  point  of 
departure,  for  his  mind.  While  examining  and  pon- 
dering its  contents,  the  inquirer  will  find  himself,  all 
along,  in  the  very  heart  of  Christianity,  because  the 
history  is  constructed  out  of  the  very  idea  of  Chris- 
tianity itself;  that  is,  in  its  spirit  and  by  its  light. 


LECTUEE    II. 

THE  NATURE,   AND   DEFINITION,   OF   SECULAR  HISTORY. 

In  the  previous  lecture,  we  have  confined  ourselves 
to  an  analysis  of  the  abstract  idea  of  development,  in 
order  to  reach  the  abstract  nature  of  History.  As  a 
consequence,  we  have  brought  into  view  only  the  uni- 
versal characteristics  of  an  expanding  process,  paying 
no  regard  to  those  particular  qualities,  which  are  dis- 
covered as  soon  as  we  begin  to  examine  the  several 
species  of  liistory  that  fall  under  the  generic  concep- 
tion. For  here,  as  everywhere,  the  concrete  applica- 
tion of  a  metaphysical  idea,  is  of  equal  importance 
with  its  analytic  enunciation.  An  a  priori  statement 
requires  to  be  completed  by  an  a  jjosteriori  verification, 
in  order  to  obtain  the  highest  scientific  value  and  cur- 
rency.*    The  principal  reason  why  the  department  of 

*  An  a  priori  theory  is  worthless  whenever  the  thought,  in  the  mind, 
is  not  found  to  correspond  with  the  thing,  in  nature.  In  this  instance 
the  theory  is  no  ^ewpta,  no  seeing  through  and  seeing  around,  but  re- 
mains what  it  was  in  tiic  start,  an  hypothesis  or  conjecture.    For  the 


THE     PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  53 

metaphysics  is  in    such   ill  repute  with  the  popular 
mind,  on  the  ground  of  both  real  and  imaginary  defi- 
ciences,  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  has  not  in  all  instances 
been  thoroughly  treated.  The  philosopher  has  been  too 
content  with  conceptions  in  their  abstract  and  univer- 
sal forms.    He  has  been  too  averse  to  take  the  second 
step,  and  do  the  last  work ;  which   is,  after  the  idea 
has  been  sufficiently  enucleated  by  logical  analysis, 
to   bring    it  forth   from  this  speculative    shape,    and 
exhibit  it  as  a  concrete  and  working  truth,  or,  in  the 
phrase  of  Bacon,  "  to  temper  the  rigor  of  the  abstrac- 
tion by  the  softening  explanation."     This  is  in  reality 
more  difficult  to  accomplish,  than  to  merely  follow  the 
laws  of  logical  thinking,  without  any  regard  to  the 
refractions,  and  reflections,  and  modifications,  of  actual 
processes.     To  follow  a  pure  logical  sequence,  is  no 
greater  task  for  a  logical  mind,  than  it  is  for  a  vigor- 
Newtonian  theory  of  gravitation,  in  the  moment  of  its  first  conception 
in  the  mind  of  the  thinker,  was  purely  hypothetical,  and,  had  not  the 
whole  subsequent  course  of  astronomical  science  been  a  verification  of 
it,  would  have  been  an  hypothesis  still,  only   an  exploded  one.     The 
diff"erence  between  the  Alchemist's  theory  of  occult  qualities,  and  that 
of  a  true  natural  philosophy,  does  not  lie  in  the  employment  of  a  dif- 
ferent mode  of  formation  in  one  instance,  from  that  used  in  the  other, 
but  in  the  fact  that  the  first  does  not  stand  the  tests  of  observation  and 
application,  while  the  last  does.   Both  are  formed  on  the  a  priori  method, 
but  the  a  posteriori  verification  destroys  in  one  case,  and  confirms  in  the 
other.  _^ 


54  THE   piiiLosoriiv  of  history. 

ous  body  to  walk  up  a  flight  of  stairs.  The  steps 
themselves,  in  both  instances,  perform  most  of  the  labor. 
The  walker  needs  only  to  lift  up  his  limbs  and  put  them 
down,  to  be  lifted  upward,  fifty  or  a  hundred  feet,  into 
space,  and  the  logician  needs  merely  to  follow  the  con- 
nections of  an  idea,  to  be  carried  through  a  very  wide 
and  long  range  of  speculation.  Hence  the  facility  with 
which  a  mere  logician  analyzes  ideas  into  their  consti- 
tuent elements,  and  constructs  systems  out  of  them.  It 
is  more  difficult,  as  we  ha\^e  remarked,  to  be  entirely 
thorough,  and  follow  an  idea  out  into  the  sphere  of 
historical  reality,  and  thus  know  it  in  the  concrete. 
Had  this  been  done  more  often,  by  the  metaphysical 
philosopher,  he  would  have  subjected  truth  to  a  more 
exhaustive  examination,  that  would  have  precluded 
those  misconceptions,  which  so  often  come  in  sub- 
sequently to  an  accurate  a  priori  analysis  and  viti- 
ate it. 

The  doctrine  of  development,  in  particular,  has 
oftentimes  undergone  deterioration,  and  lost  scientific 
properties,  by  being  contemplated  too  long  and  exclu- 
sively in  its  abstract  form.  Neglecting  to  test  and 
clarify  it  by  observation,  some  theorists  in  Natural 
Science,  come  to  employ  the  idea  in  a  sense  that  is 
contrary  to  the  strict  results  of  logical  analysis  itself, 
as  well  as  contradicted  by  the  whole  course  of  nature. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    II  I  S  T  O  R  V  .  55 

\ 

Fastening  their  gaze  upon  the  continuity/  of  the  pro- 
cess, they  lose  sight  of  its  origin,  and  slide  uncon- 
sciously into  the  notion  of  an  eternal  potentiality.  — 
This  necessitates  the  second  absurd  notion,  of  poten- 
tiality within  potentiality,  or  evolution  of  heteroge- 
neous germs  out  of  homogeneous  ones.  The  process 
has  now  lost  its  primitive  logical  simplicity,  and 
unity,  and  becomes  a  complex  and  fanciful  scheme  of 
emanations.  The  germ  is  no  longer  a  transparent 
and  pure  creation  from  nothing,  but  an  obscure  and 
mixed  evolution  from  antecedent  germs,  and  these, 
aeain,  from  their  antecedents,  and  so  backward  end- 
lessly,  with  ever  increasing  vagueness  and  mixture, 
into  the  abyss  of  chaotic  being.  Now  setting  aside 
the  valid  objections  that  spring  out  of  Ethics  and 
Religion,*  it  is  plain  that  an  actual  questioning  of 

*  That  the  ancient  Oriental  systems  of  Emanation,  and  tlieir  modern 
counterparts  the  pantheistic  systems,  are  destructive  of  the  first  principles 
and  distinctions  of  Ethics  and  Eeligion,  is  notorious.  But  that  these 
same  schemes  are  ruinous  to  true  Science,  is  not  so  often  considered.  — 
Let  any  one,  however,  examine  the  stupendous  system  of  Gnosticism, 
that  sprung  up  in  the  2d  and  3d  centuries,  and  he  will  be  convinced,  that 
such  a  conglomerate  is  incompatible  with  logical  coherence  and  scientific 
self-consistence.  Starting  from  a  false  fundamental  principle,  and  sub- 
stituting emanation  for  creation,  every  new  step  must  be  an  attempt  at 
adjustment.  This  introduces  still  more  troublesome  and  unmanageable 
matter,  which,  again,  calls  for  new  attempts  at  arrangement,  until  an 


56  THE    P  II  I  L  O  S  O  r  II  V    OF     HISTORY. 

Nature,  for  the  facts  in  the  case,  would  have  preserved 
these  theorists  from  this  corruption  of  the  true  con- 
ception of  a  development,  and  kept  them  upon  the 
truly  scientific  position.  Nature  never  exhibits  the  evo- 
lution of  one  specific  germ  from  another,  and  the  simple 
observation,  and  remembrance,  of  this  matter  of  fact, 
would  have  led  the  wandering  theorist  to  retrace  his 
steps.  A  verification  of  the  abstract  conception  itself,  by 
an  actual  reference  to  the  organic  processes  actually 
going  on  in  nature  before  his  eyes,  would  have 
reminded  him  of  the  scientific  truth,  he  was  beginning 
to  forget,  that  mere  development  cannot  account  for 
the  origin  of  any  new  thing  ;  that  a  germ  can  only 
protrude  its  own  latency,  and  cannot  inlay  a  foreign 
one.  The  very  significant  matter  of  fact,  that  one 
species  never  expands  into  another,*  would  have 
reminded  him  of  the  truth,  which  is  also  reached  by 
the  "high  priori  road"  of  rigorous  analysis,  that 
though  a  process  of  development  can  be  accounted  for 

amorphous  mass  of  speculation  is  aggregated,  tliat  is  totally  destitute  of 
the  homogeneity,  concinnity,  clearness,  and  nicety,  of  Science. 

*  The  baffled  anxiety  with  which  a  theorist,  like  the  author  of"  The 
Vestiges  of  Creation,"  ransacks  the  history  of  Natural  Science,  to  dis- 
cover a  well  authenticated  instance  in  which  a  higher  species  is  developed 
from  a  lower,  is  instructive,  as  evincing  his  sense  of  the  inestimable 
value  of  such  a  fact,  for  his  purposes,  if  such  an  one  could  be  found. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  57 

out  of  the  latent  potentiality  at  its  base,  this  latter 
can  be  accounted  for,  only  by  recurring  to  the  creative 
power  of  God.  The  careful  recognition  of  Ihe  fact, 
that  in  reriim  natura  the  expansion  of  a  vegetable  seed, 
even  if  carried  on  through  all  the  aeons  upon  aeons 
of  the  Gnostic  scheme,  or  the  cycles  upon  cycles  of 
the  geological  system,  never  transmutes  it  into  the 
eQg  of  animal  life,  would  recall  the  attention  of  the 
speculatist  to  the  self-evident  proposition,  that  noth- 
ing can  come  forth,  that  has  never  been  put  in.  The 
seen,  and  acknowledged,  failure  to  discover  any 
instance  in  which  the  passage  from  the  animal  to  the 
rational  soul,  from  the  brute  to  the  man,  has  been 
effected  by  the  pure  development  of  the  former,  would 
correct  the  vitiating  metaphysics  of  the  theorizer,  and 
restore  it  to  the  strictly  scientific  and  necessary  state- 
ment, that  a  latency  of  an  animal  kind,  cannot  by 
mere  expansion  be  converted  into  one  entirely  hetero- 
geneous, so  as  to  become  the  basis  of  a  moral  and 
spiritual,  as  distinguished  from  an  animal,  history. 

This  same  vitiation  of  true  metaphysics,  and  mis- 
apprehension of  an  abstract  conception,  is  seen  also 
within  the  sphere  of  mind,  and  of  human  history. — 
Theorizers  here,  forgetting  the  fact  of  self-will,  con- 
found the  idea  of  development,  with  that  of  improve- 
ment.    There  is  nothing  in  the  logical  conception  of 


58  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

an  evolving  process,  that  warrants  their  assertion,  that 
all  movement  in  the  history  of  a  moral  agent  must,  of 
necessity,  be  normal  and  upward.  AJl  that  is  required 
by  the  a  priori  definition  is,  that  the  process  shall  be  an 
expanding  one,  but  of  what  species,  or  from  what 
basis,  is  still  undetermined.  Forgetting  the  fact  of 
free  will,  and  the  possibility  of  defection  from  law 
attached  to  it  by  the  Creator,  they  deal  with  man,  as 
they  do  w^ith  the  crystal  or  the  flower,  and  suppose 
that  to  say  he  is  passing  through  a  process  of  devel- 
opment, necessarily  implies  that  he  is  advancing,  like 
"  the  splendor  of  the  grass  and  the  glory  of  the  flower," 
from  one  degree  of  excellence  to  another.* 

*"Evil,"  says  Emerson,  (Essay  on  Swedenborg),  "is  good  in  the 
making.  That  pure  malignity  can  exist,  is  the  extreme  proposition  of 
unbelief.  It  is  not  to  be  entertained  by  a  rational  agent ;  it  is  atheism  ; 
it  is  the  last  profanation.  The  divine  effort  is  never  relaxed ;  the  car- 
rion in  the  sun,  will  convert  itself  to  grass  and  flowers ;  and  the  man, 
though  in  brothels,  or  jails,  or  on  gibbets,  is  on  the  way  to  all  that  is 
good  and  true."  Extremes  meet.  The  denial  of  the  doctrine  of  human 
apostasy,  on  the  ground  that  it  is  dishonorable  to  man,  conducts  very 
naturally  to  the  denial  of  man's  distinguishing  and  highest  endowment, 
viz  :  his  free  will,  and  results  in  degrading  human  nature  to  the  level  of 
"  carrion,"  and  "flowers."  It  is  sonietimes  asked,  why  God  permitted 
sin  ■?  Perhaps  it  was  to  show,  that  man  is  a  will,  and  has  a  will.  Cer- 
tain it  is,  that  wherever  the  fact  of  the  free  and  guilty  fall  of  man  is 
acknowledged,  materializing  views  of  man's  nature  do  not  prevail. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  59 

Here,  again,  as  in  the  instance  of  the  natural  philoso- 
pher, a  single  observation  of  a  fact,  staring  every 
inquirer  in  the  face,  of  an  abuse  of  freedom,  and  a 
consequent  false  unfolding  in  human  nature,  would 
have  re-impressed  upon  these  minds  the  lesson  which 
a  rigorous  analysis  also  teaches,  viz:  that  an  organic 
process  may  be  downwards,  as  well  as  upwards ;  one 
of  decline  and  slow  death,  as  well  as  of  rise  and 
bloom.  The  stubborn  fact,  of  an  illegitimate  devel- 
opment going  on  in  the  very  heart  of  humanity,  and 
covering  the  whole  period  of  human  history,  compels 
the  theorizer  to  notice  an  aspect  of  the  doctrine,  he 
had  lost  sight  of  amidst  the  abstraction  of  Science, 
which  is  concerned  with  what  ought  to  be,  more  than 
what  may  be,  and  actually  is.  The  application  of  the 
metaphysical  conception  of  development,  to  what  he 
finds  to  be  a  stern  matter  of  fact,  preserves  its  scientific 
purity,  and  precision,  by  preventing  him  from  surrepti- 
tiously throwing  out  its  universality,  and  impartiality, 
whereby  it  is  capable  of  an  application  to  any  process, 
legitimate  or  illegitimate,  so  it  be  an  organic  sequence, 
and  surreptitiously  narrowing  it  down  to  a  particular 
species  of  process,  viz :  a  normal  one.  For  there  is  no 
more  reason  for  regarding  evolution  as  synonymous 
with  improvement  alone,  than  with  degeneracy  alone. 
Scientific  universals  are   wide,  and    impartial.      No 


60  THE  PHILOSOPHY  of  history. 

particular  truth  is  told,  or  intended  to  be,  when  it  is 
asserted  that  there  is  a  process  of  development  going 
on  in  the  world.  This  is  granted  upon  all  sides.  On 
coming  within  the  sphere  of  free  agency,  it  is  neces- 
sary, in  order  to  any  definite  and  valuable  statement, 
to  determine,  by  actual  observatipn,  wJiat  it  is  that  is 
being  expanded ;  whether  a  primitive  potentiality 
originated  by  the  Creator,  or  a  secondary  one  origi- 
nated by  the  creature,  to  eilher  of  ivhich,  the  abstract 
conception  of  expansion  is  alike  applicable. 

Hence,  on  coming  down  into  the  sphere  of  the  con- 
crete, we  are  obliged  to  notice  the  varieties  of  devel- 
opment. In  endeavoring  to  apply  the  idea,  whose 
nature  w^e  have  analyzed,  to  the  actual  career  of  man 
on  the  globe,  w^e  must  take  into  account  the  pecu- 
liarity of  this  career.  In  specifying  this,  we  exhibit 
the  distinctive  nature  of  Secular  History,  and  give  its 
definition. 

The  ordinary,  and  common,  history  of  mankind,  as 
the  observer  in  every  age  sees  it  going  on  before  his 
eyes,  differs  from  all  other  histories,  of  which  he  knows 
anything,  by  being  contrary  to  the  primary  law  of 
creation.  All  other  existences,  so  far  as  he  knows,  are 
conformed  to  the  law  of  their  being,  and  their  devel- 
opment is,  consequently,  legitimate  and  normal. 
Throughout  all  material  nature,  there  is  no  possibility 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  61 

of  the  contrary,  and,  consequently,  there  is  an  inevi- 
table obedience  to  the  creative  idea,  and  an  unvary- 
ing expansion  of  the  original  germ.  The  few  mon- 
sters, lusus  naturce  as  we  call  them,  are  very  few,  and 
do  not  affect  the  genus,  or  species,  to  which  they 
belong.  A  mal-formed  crystal  is  an  isolated  thing, 
and  its  formation  has  no  efl'ect  upon  the  law  and  pro- 
cess, of  crystallization.  A  body  w^th  two  heads  is 
entirely  anomalous,  and  uncommon,  and  does  not,  in 
the  least,  modify  the  operation  of  the  general  law  of 
production.  Material  nature  proceeds  undeviatingly, 
because,  within  this  sphere,  there  is  no  possibility  of 
self-will.  Development  here,  is  both  ideal  and  uni- 
form. Hence,  the  moralist  and  theologian  point  to 
the  perfect  unfolding  of  the  natural  world,  as  an 
example,  to  be  imitated  by  the  voluntary  spirit  of 
man.  The  highest  authority  has  set  the  lilies  of  the 
field  before  us,  for  our  deliberate  imitation ;  and  the 
poet,  in  his  distich,  has  briefly  repeated  the  same  truth  : 
"  Seekest  thou  the  highest,  and  the  greatest?  the 
plants  can  teach  it  to  thee.  What  they  are  involun- 
tarily, that  be  thou  voluntarily."  * 

And  if  we  pass  from  nature  into  the  realm  of  spirit- 
ual existence,   we  find  that,  with  the  exception  of 

*  Schiller.  Das  Hijcliste. 

6 


62  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

man,  and  a  portion  of  the  angelic  hosts,  all  voluntary- 
beings  are  in  allegiance  to  law,  and  their  develop- 
ment is  legitimate,  and  normal.  For  that  catastrophe 
and  fall  in  heaven,  was  scarcely  a  speck  upon  the  infi- 
nite expanse  of  eternity.  The  idea  of  race  does  not 
aj^ply  to  the  angel,  as  it  does  to  the  man.  We  speak 
of  the  angelic  hos  ,  but  never  of  the  angelic  race. 
Hence  the  apostasy  of  the  Son  of  the  Morning  and 
his  followers,  like  the  mal-formation  of  a  crystal  in 
the  material  world,  was  an  isolated  occurrence,  whose 
effects  did  not  extend  beyond  itself.  Each  angelic 
will  fell  for,  and  by,  itself.  Hence  the  general  allegi- 
ance of  the  hierarchies  continued,  and  continues,*  so 
that  we  may  say,  notwithstanding  this  instance  of 
deviation  from  the  Divine  law,  that  in  the  heavenly 
world,  as  in  the  natural,  the  development  and  the  his- 
tory are  legitimate,  and  normal. 

Man  then  stands  alone  ;  the  only  unloyal  race  in  the 
universe;  the  only  species  of  being  which,  as  a  unity, 
and  a  whole,  has  thrown  itself  out  of  the  line  of  its 
true  destination,  and  is  running  a  false  career. 

*  *  *  far  the  greater  part  have  kept,  I  see, 

Their  station  ;  heaven  yet  populous,  retains 
Number  sufficient  to  possess  her  realms, 
Though  wide,  and  tliis  high  temple  to  frequent 
With  ministeries  due,  and  solemn  rites. 

Pakadise  Lost,  vii.  145-149 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  63 

With  the  possibility,  and  necessary  conditions  of 
such  a  catastrophe,  we  have  in  this  discussion  no 
concern.  It  is  sufficient,  for  the  purposes  of  the  phi- 
losophy of  Secular  History,  to  postulate  its  occurrence 
through  the  abuse  of  human  freedom,  by  the  permis- 
sive will,  and  decree,  of  God.  Had,  then,  the  devel- 
opment of  man  proceeded  from  the  primary  germ, 
and  original  inlay,  it  would  have  been  ideal,  and  per- 
fect. All  that  some  theorists  now  say  respecting  the 
actual  history  of  man,  would  then  have  been  exact. y 
descriptive  of  that  normal  process.  Human  nature 
would  then  have  unfolded  in  all  the  beauty,  and  per- 
fect conformity  to  the  creative  idea,  which  we  have 
seen  to  be  characteristic  of  the  crystal,  or  the  flower. 
The  spontaneous,  and  the  natural,  in  human  history, 
would  then  have  been  the  ideal,  and  the  perfect. 

But  we  know,  not  by  an  a  priori  method  but  as 
matter  of  fact,  that  the  development  of  humanity  did 
not  proceed  from  this  first,  and  proper,  point  of  de- 
parture. The  creative  idea,  by  the  Creator's  permis- 
sion, was  not  realized  by  the  free  agent.  The  law  of 
man's  creation  was  not  obeyed.  The  original,  and 
true,  historic  germ  was  crowded  out,  by  a  second 
false  one.  The  first  potential  basis  of  human  history, 
which  provided  for  a  purer  progress,  and  a  grander 
evolution,  than   man  now  can  conceive  of,  was  dis- 


64       THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

placed  by  a  second  basis,  which  likewise  provided  for 
a  false  development,  and  an  awful  history,  if  not  iuper- 
naturally  hindered,  all  along  through  the  same  endless 
duration. 

The  origination  of  moral  evil  by  the  self-will  of 
man,  consequently,  brings  to  view  another  aspect  of 
the  idea  of  development,  and  a  dilTerent  application 
of  the  doctrine  of  genetic  evolution.  This  stubborn 
fact  compels  the  speculating  mind  to  acknowledge, 
what  it  is  prone  to  lose  sight  of,  viz :  that  so  far  as 
the  abstract  definition  is  concerned,  development  may 
be  synonymous  with  corruption,  and  decline,  as  well 
as  with  improvement ;  that  the  organic  sequences  of 
history  may  be  those  of  decay,  and  death,  as  well  as 
those  of  bloom,  and  life.  For  it  displays,  for  his  exam- 
ination, another  sort  of  germ,  besides  that  one  cre- 
ated by  the  Creator,  and  which  He  pronounced  "good." 
It  shows  him  a  very  different  potential ty,  from  that 
original  moral  perfection  with  which  humanity  was 
once  endowed.  It  enables  him  to  understand  some- 
thing of  the  meaning  of  free-will,  and,  yet  more,  some- 
thing of  the  mystery  of  self-will.  For  that  misappre- 
hension of  the  abstract  idea  of  development,  whereby 
it  is  contracted  down  from  its  wide  ur.ivcrsality  of 
meaning,  and  applicability  to  all  organic  processes 
whatsoever,  and  limited  to  the  single  part'  fular  pro- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  65 

cess  of  improvement,  arises  from  overlooking  the 
functions  and  operations  of  free  agency,  which  play- 
such  a  part  in  the  history  of  Man,  and  introduce  such 
changes  and  varieties  into  it.  The  philosopher,  at 
this  point,  as  at  many  others,  needs  the  instruction 
of  the  theologian.  He  needs  to  be  reminded  by 
his  scientific  co-laborer,  that  the  moral  power  of  self- 
determination  causes  alterations,  and  catastrophes, 
within  the  moral  world,  such  as  never  appear  in  the 
world  of  material  nature,  and  hence  that  when  the 
theorist  comes  into  this  sphere,  he  must  not  be  sur- 
prised if  he  finds  archetypes  departed  from,  and  glo- 
rious ideals  unrealized.  Theology  reminds  philoso- 
phy of  the  fact,  that  although  the  natural  and  secular 
man  is  mentally  rational,  he  is  not  moralhj  so ;  that 
though  the  eternal  truths  of  right,  have  been  inlaid  in 
his  reason,  by  the  act  of  his  Creator,  they  have  been 
expelled  from  his  will,  by  an  act  of  his  own.  The 
theorist,  contemplating  man's  mental  constitution, 
finds  him  to  be  possessed  of  all  the  truths  of  reason. 
These  truths  are  necessary,  and,  in  their  own  nature, 
entitled  to  an  universal  dominion.  Hence  he  hastily 
concludes,  that  they  must,  of  themselves,  prevail  in 
the  history  of  any  being,  in  whose  very  mental  struc- 
ture they  arc  so  thoroughly  inwoven.  The  specu- 
lative maxim,  "  truth   is  mighty,  and  must    prevail," 

6* 


66  T  u  E  1'  n  1 1.  o  s  o  V  n  y   o  f  history. 

carries  him  to  the  practical  conclusion,  "  a  rational 
being  must  inevitably  act  out  his  rationality,  and 
be  rational  in  all  respects."  But  the  theorist  for- 
gets, that  the  realization  of  a  truth,  in  life  and  con- 
duct, can  go  forth  only  from  the  active,  and  emotive, 
side  of  man.  The  heart  and  will,  are  the  vitality  of  the 
human  soul,  and,  hence,  the  proper  seat  of  growth  and 
evolution  within  it.*  "We  have  already,  by  a  rigorous 
definition,  evinced,  that  a  process  of  development,  is  an 
organic,  and  consequently  a  thoroughly  vital,  one.  Of 
whichever  species  it  may  be  ;  be  it  growth  in  perfec- 
tion, or  growth  in  corruption,  be  it  a  living  life,  or  a 
living  death ;  as  a  connected  and  organic  process,  it 
must  go  on  in  the  faculties  of  feeling  and  will,  or 
not  at  all.  Development,  be  it  true  or  false,  is  the 
result  of  an  active  principle.  If,  therefore,  the  truths 
of  reason  and  righteousness  are  not  wrought  into  this 
part  of  the  man,  it  matters  not  how  thoroughly  they 
may  have  been  elaborated,  by  the  Creator's  act,  into 

*  It  is  a  maxim  of  the  lynx-eyed  Aristotle,  that  "  mere  intellect 
moves  nothing;"  diavoia  S'  avrr]  ovSey  Kivii .     Ethics,  vi.  5. 

That  radical  movement  and  transformation  must  proceed  from  the  prac- 
tical, in  distinction  from  the  theoretic,  side  of  human  nature,  is  the  teach- 
ing of  this  whole  paragraph,  as  well  as  of  others,  in  this  system  of 
ethics.  The  theological  doctrine,  that  no  real  moral  change  can  bo 
brought  about  in  humanity,  but  by  the  renewal  of  the  idll^  will  suggest  it- 
self to  the  reader  in  this  connection. 


THE    P  II  I  L  O  S  O  1'  11  Y    O  F    11  I  S  T  O  K  Y  .  67 

the  stationary  intellectual  part  of  him.     For  there  can 
be  no  flexile  expansion  of  a  truth  of  reason  or  reve- 
lation, unless  it  has  been  assimilated,  and  absorbed, 
into  the  moral   and  voluntary  nature  of  man.     Re- 
maining in  its  rigid  intellectual  form,  in  the  pure  the- 
oretic  reason    of  man,  a   doctrine  of  natural,  or   of 
revealed,  religion,  has  no  more  power  of  pliantly  un- 
folding into  feeling  and  conduct,  than  a  stone  has  of 
turning  into  vegetable  matter,  merely  because  it  has 
been  caught,  and  held,  in  the  fork  of  a  rapidly  grow- 
ing tree.     The  error  of  the  theorist,  who  argues  from 
the  ideal  to  the  real,  and  affirms  the  necessary  normal 
development  of  human  nature,  merely  because  it  con- 
tains within  itself  the  rule  and  law  by  which  it  ovght 
to  unfold;  this  error,  of  regarding  development  as  the 
synonyrae  of  improvement,   arises  from   overlooking 
the  diiTerence  between  the  legislative  and  the  execu- 
tive, the  constitutive   and  the  voluntary,  the  mental 
and  the  moral.     A  very  considerable  degree  of  moral 
light  may  exist,  without  the  least  degree  of  moral  life. 
The  rise  of  a  respectable  system  of  natural  theology 
in  pagan  Greece  and  Rome,  is  no  more  a  proof  of  a 
normal,  or  even  an   improving,  evolution  of  human 
nature  in  that  age  and  clime,  than   the  clearest  con- 
victions of  reason,  and  the  most  poignant  reproaches 
of  conscience,  in  an  individual,  are  proofs  that  his  in- 


68  THE  PHILOSOPHY  of  history. 

ward  moral  life  is  heavenly  and  heaven-ward.  Indeed, 
it  is  only  a  very  loose,  and  inadequate,  apprehension  of 
the  idea  of  development,  that  can  find  in  that  wholly 
speculative  movement  of  the  ancient  philosophic  mind, 
and  which,  moreover,  even  in  this  form,  was  con- 
fined to  a  very  few  of  the  more  thoughtful  sages, 
and  never  exerted  any  influence  upon  the  individual 
and  social  life  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  populations ; 
it  is,  we  say,  a  very  meagre  and  narrow  conception 
of  a  very  pregnant  and  fertile  idea,  that  can  find,  in 
such  a  restricted  j^henomenon,  the  characteristics  of  a 
great  diffusive  organic  process,  which  moulds  human 
society  internally,  and  from  the  centre.  Can  any  can- 
did mind  say,  that  that  "  moral  philosophy,"  which, 
as  Bacon  says,  "#vas  the  heathen  divinity,"  sustained 
the  same  inward  relation  to  heathendom,  that  Chris- 
tianity does  to  Christendom ;  that  the  system  of  Soc- 
rates was  the  principle  of  moral  life  for  any  portion 
of  antiquity,  as  the  system  of  Christ  has  been  for  the 
church  in  all  ages  ?  On  the  contrary,  was  not  the 
truth,  as  St.  Paul  affirms,  held  down  in  unrighteous- 
ness, and  Avas  not  the  actual  spontaneous  develop- 
ment of  the  old  world,  as  contrary  to  the  doctrines  of 
natural,  as  of  revealed,  religion  ? 

And,  so  far  as  the  individual  examples  of  pagan 
virtue  are  concerned,  we  are  willing  to  leave  the  de- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  69 

cision  of  the  question,  to  themselves,  whether  the  nat- 
ural religion,  which  they  apprehended  in  their  reason 
and  conscience,  had  so  passed  into  their  affections  and 
will,  and  had  such  a  vital  control  over  their  heart  and 
character,  as  to  constitute  a  normal  development  of 
human  nature  in  their  case.  Read  Plato,  and  find  as 
full  a  confession,  prompted  by  a  personal  conscious- 
ness, of  the  corruption  and  degeneracy  of  human 
nature,  as  ever  came  from  uninstructed  lips.  Ask  the 
wisest  of  heathen,  if  the  principles  of  reason  and 
righteousness,  which  lay  in  such  clear  outline  before 
his  mind's  eye,  constituted  the  life  of  his  soul ;  and 
hear  the  answer,  that  however  it  may  have  been  with 
him  in  a  pre-existence  of  which  he  dreamed,  and 
however  it  might  be  with  him  in  a  future  world  of 
which  he  knew  nothing  with  certainty,  the  existing  in- 
ward life,  the  present^haracter,  and  the  actual  on-going 
development,  was  certainly  contrary  to  the  Beautiful, 
the  True,  and  the  Good. 

The  result,  then,  of  the  investigation  in  this  lec- 
ture, is  the  further  distinction  of  the  idea  of  develop- 
ment from  that  of  improvement,  and  the  definition 
of  Secular  History  as  an  abnormal  but  organic  pro- 
cess. We  had  previously  distinguished  it  from  crea- 
tion, and,  now,  this  second  limitation  brings  us  round 
to  an  exhaustive  definition  of  an  idea  which  is  probably 


70  THE     PIiri-OSOPHY    OP    HISTORY. 

more  potent,  than  any  other,  in  forming  and  fixing 
the  intellectual  methods  of  the  present  generation  of 
educated  men.  The  history  of  the  word  is  instruc- 
tive. The  loose,  and  unscientific,  use  of  this  single 
term,  has  done  as  much  as  any  other  single  cause,  to 
introduce  error  into  current  theories  of  nature,  of 
man,  and  of  human  history.  The  remedy  is  not  to 
be  found  in  the  rejection  of  either  the  conception  or 
the  term,  but  in  a  rigorous  and  scientific  treatment  of 
the  idea  itself,  by  which  it  is  made  to  yield  up  its  true 
and  exact  meaning ;  whereby  it  shall  be  fitted  to  apply 
equally  to  Heavenly  and  to  Profane  History,  to  pure 
and  to  corrupt  evolutions,  to  organic  processes  of  bloom 
and  beauty  and  perfection,  and  to  organic  processes 
of  decline,  decay,  and  ruin.  The  downward  tenden- 
cies of  human  nature,  which  constitute  the  substance 
of  Secular,  as  distinguished  from'Sacred,  History  ;  the 
acknowledged  deterioration  of  languages,  literatures, 
religions,  arts,  sciences,  and  civilizations ;  the  slow 
and  sure  decay  of  national  vigor,  and  return  to  barbar- 
ism ;  the  unvarying  decline,  from  public  virtue  to  pub- 
lic voluptuousness  ;  in  short,  the  entire  history  of  man, 
so  far  as  he  is  outside  of  supernatural  influences,  and 
unaffected  by  the  intervention  of  his  original  Creator, 
though  it  is  a  self-determined  and  responsible  process, 
is  yet,  in  every  part  and  particle,  as  organically  con- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY 


71 


nected,  and  as  strict  an  evolution,  as  is  that  other  up- 
ward tendency,  started  in  the  Christian  Church,  and 
ended  in  the  eternal  state,  by  which  this  same  hu- 
manity is  being  restored  to  the  heights  whence  it 
fell 

But  while  the  course  of  development  in  Secular  or 
Profane  History,  presupposes  a  potential  basis  from 
which  it  proceeds,  the  all-important  fact  must  be 
noticed,  and  remembered,  that  this  is  a  secondary 
basis,  and  not  a  primary  one, "and  that  the  originating 
author  is  the  finite^  and  not  the  infinite,  will.  Under 
and  within  the  permissive  decree  of  God,  sin  is  man's 
creation ;  he  makes  it  out  of  nothing.  For  the  origin 
of  moral  evil  cannot  be  accounted  for,  by  the  expan- 
sion of  something  already  in  existence,  anymore  than 
the  origin  of  matter  can  be.  Original  righteousness, 
unfolded  never  so  long,  and  intensely,  will  never  be 
transmuted  into  original  sin.  The  passage,  from  one 
to  the  other,  must  be  by  an  absolutely  originant  act  of 
self-will,  which  act,  subject  only  to  the  limitation  and 
condition,  above-mentioned,  of  the  permission  of  the 
Supreme  Being,  is  strictly  creative  from  nothing. 
The  origin  of  sin,  is  the  origination  of  a  new  historic 
germ,  and  not  the  unfolding,  or  modification,  of  an  old 
one,  and  hence  the  necessity  of  a  creating,  in  distinc- 
tion from  a  developing,  energy ;  such  as  is  denoted  by 


72  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

the  possihilitas  peccandi  attributed  by  the  theologian 
to  the  will  of  the  unfallen  Adam.  Supposing,  then, 
the  beginning  of  moral  evil  to  be  carefully  referred  to 
the  abuse  of  human  freedom,  and  keeping  the  process 
of  its  evolution  within  the  same  sphere  of  self-will  in 
which  it  took  its  first  start,  we  may  then  say,  that  it 
undergoes  a  development,  as  truly  as  any  thing  else 
that  belongs  to  the  history  of  man.  If  any  one  doubts 
whether  this  term,  so  often  applied  only  in  a  good 
sense,  as  to  be  for  the  popular  mind  the  synonyme  of 
normal  progress,  is  properly  applicable  to  a  process 
like  that  of  human  sinfulness,  he  needs  only  to  try  this 
process  by  the  tests  that  are  discriminated  in  the  meta- 
physical analysis  of  the  conception.  He  will  find  that 
the  corruption  of  humanity  has  been  as  organic  a 
se(iuence,  from  an  original  centre,  as  is  to  be  found 
either  in  the  realm  of  Nature  or  of  Spirit;  that  it 
exhibits  all  the  characteristics  of  an  evolution;  the 
necessary  and  natural  connection  of  elements  and  prop- 
erties, their  action  and  reaction,  the  sameness  of  gen- 
eric principle  in  all  the  individual  varieties,  and  the 
unceasing  motion  of  a  constant  expansion. 

The  same  rigorous  application  of  the  doctrine  of 
development,  moreover,  compels  us  to  the  further  po- 
sition, that  the  reversal  of  this  illegitimate,  and  false, 
process  which  is  going  on  in  humanity,  also  necessi- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  73 

tates  a  creative  power.  For  no  process  of  mere,  and 
strict,  evolution  can  go  behind  itself,  and  alter  the 
base  from  which  it  proceeds.  Radical  changes  can- 
not be  produced  in  this  manner.  There  must  be  an 
originant  energy,  in  order  to  these.  The  passage  from 
holiness  to  sin,  we  have  already  noticed,  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  the  doctrine  of  development,  and 
neither  can  the  passage  from  sin  to  holiness  be  ex- 
plained by  the  theory  of  education.  The  expulsion 
of  a  false  germ,  and  the  re-introduction  of  the  true  one, 
must,  therefore,  be  accomplished  by  an  agency  that 
is  creative,  in  distinction  from  one  that  is  merely  ex- 
pansive. An  organic  process  is,  by  its  very  nature 
and  definition,  self-perpetuating,  until  an  agency,  spe- 
cifically different  from  its  own,  interferes.  A  germ 
of  one  kind  cannot  originate  a  germ  of  a  diflerent  one, 
"and  consequently  there  is  no  natural  and  germinant 
passage,  from  an  illegitimate  to  a  legitimate  poten- 
tiality in  human  history,  any  more  than  there  is  from 
a  vegetable  to  an  animal  species.  The  passage,  if 
there  be  one,  must  be  supernatural ;  i.  e.  the  work  of 
a  creative,  in  distinction  from  an  educing,  agency,  and 
by  an  instantaneous  act,  in  distinction  from  a  gradual 
process. 

Secular  history  is  therefore  separated  from  Sacred, 
by  a  chasm  over  which  it  cannot  pass,  cxce[)t  by  the 

7 


74       THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

intervention  of  the  Creator.*  The  abuse  of  human 
freedom,  allows  of  no  self-remedy.  The  Christian 
Religion,  and  the  new  historic  process  resting  upon 
it,  cannot,  from   the  very  nature  of  the  case,  and  the 

*  The  query  may  arise   in   this   connection,  whether  this   creative 
energy  may  not  be  in  the  fallen  finite  will  itself,  and  thus  there  be  no 
absolute  necessity  of  the  intervention  of  the  infinite  Spirit,  and  employ- 
ment of  special  Divine  efficiency.    If  the  human  will  was  possessed, 
before  its  defection  from  Law,  of  a  power  to  create  moral  evil,  why  is  it 
not  possessed,  since  its  fall,  of  a  power  to  create  moral  good  1     The 
objections  to  this  are  the  following.     (1)  The   affirmation  of  such  a 
power  rests,  solely,  upon  an  a  priori  foundation.     There  is  no  a  posteriori 
test,  and  verification,  that  corroborates  it.    Fallen  man  is  not  conscious 
of  such  an  originant  energy  to  good,  though  he  is  at  times  conscious  of 
its  lack ;  and  that  he  never  exerted  it,  is  a  well-established  fact.     This 
power  then  to  originate,  in  distinction  from    develop    and  cultivate, 
holiness,  if  attributed  to  the  sinful  will  at  all,  must  be  attributed  upon 
other  grounds  than  psychological  and  practical  ones.    But  metapliysics 
unsupported  by  psychology,  we  have  seen,  must  be  conjectural  merely, 
and  consequently  of  a  spurious  order.    An  abstract  theory,  which  is 
destitute  of  its  concrete  correspondent  in  the  world  of  actual  experi- 
ence, like  the  Alchemists'  hypothesis  of  occult  qualities,  is  destitute  of 
scientific  value.     Science  demands  a  matching  of  the  one  half,  with  its 
other  half;  of  the  a  priori,  with  the  a  posteriori.    If  such  be  the  real 
lelation  of  these  two  intellectual  methods  to  each  other,  it  follows  that 
a  position,  like  the  one  in  question,  which  can  get  its  support  from  only 
one  of  them,  and  this,  the  least  practical  of  the  two,  should  be  rejected. 
(2)  But  in  the  second  place,  even  if  the  position  in  question  be  held  as 
a  pure  abstraction,  by  a  dead  lift  of  the  intellect,  and  without  any 
experimental  corroboration,  it  then  follows  from  it,  that  the  finite  will 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  75 

very  terms  of  the  statement,  be  an  evolution  of  the 
apostate  man.  To  affirm  this,  would  be  to  confound 
development  with  creation.  A  clear  and  distinct  con- 
ception, consequently,  of  the  nature  of  Secular  His- 
tory, guides  the  mind  inevitably  to  the  doctrine,  and 
fact,  of  Revelation,  if  a  radical  change  is  to  be  intro- 

can  be  the  absolute,  and  sole,  author  of  holiness,  as  it  is  of  sin,  and  that, 
consequently,  it  can  establish  for  itself  an  absolute  meritoriousness 
before  God,  as  it  can  and  has  an  absolute  guiltiness.  It  confessedly  has 
the  power  of  creating  moral  evil  out  of  nothing,  M'ithout  the  influence 
and  co-operation  of  the  Divine  Spirit,  so  that  its  demerit  is  absolute, 
and  its  damnation  eternal,  in  case  it  uses  this  power;  and  if  it  is  capable 
of  originating  moral  good,  in  the  same  unassisted  manner,  then  a  cor- 
respondent absoluteness  of  merit  would  be  established  upon  this  side. 
But  no  finite  will,  not  even  that  of  the  unfallen  angels,  can  take  the 
total  merit  of  holiness  to  itself,  as  the  fallen  will  must  take  the  total 
demerit  of  sinfulness.  It  is  only  on  the  side  of  moral  evil,  that  the  will 
of  the  creature  can  act  without  influence  and  assistance  from  the  Creator, 
because  it  is  only  on  this  side,  that  it  can  act  in  opposition  to  Ilim.  — 
While,  therefore,  man  by  the  permission  of  the  Supreme,  and  not  with- 
out it,  can  abuse  his  free  agency,  and  establish  a  self-derived,  and  there- 
fore absolute,  criminality,  he  can  never,  by  the  use  of  free  agency, 
establish  a  self-derived,  and  therefore  absolute,  worthiness.  If  then,  the 
very  relationship  of  all  moral  good  to  the  Holy  Spirit,  is  that  of  depen- 
dence, to  such  a  degree  that  the  doctrine  of  its  absolute  origination,  oi 
creation  from  nothing,  is  inapplicable  even  to  the  unfallen  finite  spirit, 
much  more  must  this  doctrine  be  excluded,  in  the  instance  of  the 
apostate  will.  The  theory  of  a  strictly  originant  energy  in  the  soul  of 
man,  can,  consequently,  apply  only  to  moral  evil. 


76  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

duced.  No  new  order  of  history  can  possibly  begin, 
if  the  existing  movement  and  expansion  are  simply 
left  to  themselves.  An  absolutely  originant  and  cre- 
ative power  must  be  called  in,  to  reverse  the  process, 
and  give  it  an  upward  instead  of  a  downward, 
direction. 


LECTURE    III. 

THE  NATURE,  AND  DEFINITION,  OF  CHURCH  HISTORY. 

In  explaining  and  applying  the  idea  of  development, 
we  have  arrived  at  the  nature  of  History  in  the 
abstract,  and  of  that  specific  concrete  form  which  is 
denominated  Profane,  or  Secular.  We  have  now  to 
make  a  third  application  of  the  idea  to  the  history  of 
Christianity. 

Church  History  we  define  to  be,  the  restoring  of 
the  true  development  of  the  human  spirit,  by  the 
supernatural  agency  of  its  Creator.  The  doctrine  of 
evolution  is  now  to  be  applied  to  that  gradual  process 
of  recovery  from  the  apostasy  of  his  will,  which 
regenerated  man  is  passing  through,  here  on  earth,  as 
a  member  of  the  spiritual  kingdom  of  Christ.  We 
shall  find  this  to  be  a  series,  and  sequence,  as  organic 
as  any  that  have  passed  before  our  review,  or  that  we 
can  conceive  of.  The  founder  of  Christianity  Him- 
self, so  describes  it,  when  He  says  that  "  The  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  which  a 
man  took,  and  sowed  in  his  field  ;  which  indeed  is  the 
least  of  all  seeds:  but  when  it  is   grown   it   is   the 

T 


78  T  HE    P  H  I  L  O  S  O  V  11  Y   t)  F    HISTORY. 

greatest  among  herbs,  and   becorneth   a  tree,  so  that 
the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches 
thereof;  "  when  He  says,  again,  that  "  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  unto  leaven,  which  a  woman  took,  and 
hid  in  three   measm-es   of    meal,  till  the  whole  was 
leavened."  *     In  these  parables,  two  of  the  most  tho- 
rough and  inward  processes  in  nature,  viz :  those  of 
germination  and  fermentation,  are  chosen  by  our  Lord 
to  indicate  the  real  nature  of  his  religion.     And   no 
one  can  study  the  illustrations,  which  He  so  frequently 
employs,  in  order  to   give  a  clear  conception  of  his 
religion  as  it  works  in  the  individual  soul,  and  in  the 
world  at  large,  without  being  convinced  that  it  is,  in 
its  own  sphere  and  kind,  as  much  of  the  nature  of  a 
living  principle,  as  the  breath  of  life  in  the  nostrils. — 
For  these  illustrations  are  almost  entirely  drawn  from 
the  world  of  animated  nature,  and  thereby  evince  that 
the  Author  of  nature  and   of  grace  knows,  that  the 
vitality  of  the  one  best  symbolizes   and  explains  the 
vitality  of  the  other. 

But  if  it  was  of  the  first  importance,  in  the  previous 
lectures,  to  direct  attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  power 
which  originates  the  basis  of  any  living  process  is  a 
creative  one,  it  is  certainly  so  in  the  present  instance. 
This  free,  and  fresh,  unfolding  of  the  Christian  life,  in 

*  Matthew  xm.  31—33. 


THE    r  »  I  L  O  S  O  r  H  Y    OF    HISTORY.  79 

the  midst  of  the  declining  processes  of  Secular  History, 
as  was  indicated  in  the  close  of  the  last  lecture,  can- 
not be  accounted  for,  by  any  germs  or  forces  lying 
undeveloped  in  the  heart  of  the  secular  man.  Mere 
expansion,  forever  and  forevermore,  would  only  display 
a  more  thoroughly  intense,  and  concentrated,  corrup- 
tion of  human  nature.  We  are,  consequently,  once 
more  driven  to  the  Supernatural  and  Divine,  if  any 
radical  change  in  humanity,  and  any  new  species  of 
history,  is  to  be  introduced.  As  Secular  History  is 
the  unfolding  of  the  fallen  nature  of  man,  left  to  its 
own  spontaneity,  so  Sacred  History  is  the  develop- 
ment of  his  regenerated  nature,  under  the  continued 
influence  of  the  power  that  first,  and  instantaneously, 
effected  the  change.  The  first  question,  consequently, 
that  is  to  be  answered  here,  relates  to  this  power  itself. 
What,  then,  is  that  supernatural  Power,  which  begins, 
carries  forward,  and  perfects,  that  new  process  of 
development  in  human  nature,  which  constitutes  the 
sum  and  substance  of  Church  History  ?  In  answering 
this  question,  we  necessarily  describe,  by  implication, 
the  nature  of  this  species,  and  obtain  a  clue  to  the 
whole  process  itself. 

Speaking  generally,  the  power  which   begins,  per-, 
petuates,  and  completes,  the  restoration   of  the  true 
unfolding  of  humanity,  is   Divine   Revelation.     The 


80  THE    rillLOSOPllY     OF     HISTORY. 

term  is  taken  in  its  most  comprehensive  meaning,  to 
denote  the  entire  special  communication  which  God 
has  made  to  man.  In  this  generic  form,  it  subdivides 
irito  two  main  branches  ;  (1)  The  revelation  of  Truth  : 
(2)   The  dispensation  of  the  Spirit. 

From  the  fall  in  Eden,  down  to  the  death  of  the 
last  of  the  Apostles,  God,  through  the  medium  of 
inspiration,  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners, 
has  imparted  to  the  mind  of  man  a  body  of  knowledge, 
the  purpose  of  which  is  to  enlighten  his  darkened 
understanding  respecting  his  origin,  fall,  actual  char- 
acter, religious  necessities  and  the  divine  method  of 
meeting  them.  This  revealed  truth  has  been  pre- 
served by  special  Providence,  and  is  now,  an  out- 
ward, fixed,  written  revelation. 

Again,  parallel  with  this  species  of  Divine  commu- 
nication, another  has  been  made,  viz :  a  dispensation 
of  direct  spiritual  influence.  The  purpose  of  this 
second  form  of  the  Divine  manifestation,  is  to  renew 
and  sanctify  the  human  soul.  The  function  of  the 
first,  is  to  enlighten,  as  that  of  the  second,  is  to  enliven. 
These  two  forms  of  God's  supernatural  self-revelation 
are  co-ordinate,  and  necessary  to  each  other's  success  ; 
►  and  hence  the  dispensation  of  spiritual  influence  has 
accompanied  that  of  truth,  in  all  ages  of  the  Church 
from  the  very  beginning.     For  although   the  degree 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTOPtY.  81 

and  e  ent  of  this  influence,  was  greatly  augmented 
after  the  ascension  of  Christ,  yet  it  would  be  as  incor- 
rect to  affirm  that  the  kind,  the  fact  itself  of  direct 
divine  efficiency  upon  the  human  soul,  did  not  exist 
in  the  Patriarchal  and  Jewish  churches,  as  it  would  to 
assert  that  there  was  no  revelation  of  truth  from  God, 
previous  to  the  New  Testament  economy,  because  the 
disclosures  of  this  latter  were  so  much  fuller  than 
those  of  its  antecedent. 

Revelation,  then,  in  this  generic  sense,  is  a  unity 
and  a  continuity.  So  far  as  it  is  a  communication 
of  Truth,  it  began  with  the  promise  in  Eden,  and 
ended  with  the  glowing  invitation  of  the  beloved 
disciple  of  the  Incarnate  Word,  who  was  also  the 
Jehovah  of  the  Patriarchs  and  Prophets,  addressed  to 
all  men  without  distinction,  to  take  the  water  of  life 
freely.  So  far  as  it  is  a  communication  of  the  Spirit, 
it  commenced  with  the  regeneration  of  the  fallen  pair, 
and  has  continued,  through  all  ages,  to  be  the  efficient 
agency  in  applying  the  written  revelation.  Unlike 
the  communication  of  the  Word,  that  of  the  Spirit 
must  continue  to  the  end  of  the  world ;  and  yet  the 
permanent  co-ordination,  and  mutual  necessity,  of 
each,  will  be  seen  in  the  fact,  that  the  finished  revela- 
tion of  Truth,  the  concluded  canon  of  Scripture,  will 
be  employed  to  the  end  of  time,  by  the  Holy  Ghost, 


82  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

as  his  own,  and  only,  instrument  of  human  renova- 
tion. 

We  have,  then,  in  this  total,  generic,  Revelation 
from  God,  the  originant  power  in  Church  History. — 
The  foundation  of  Secular  History,  is  the  human 
mind  and  human  power,  under  the  merely  ordinary, 
maintaining,  agency  of  Divine  Providence;  that  of 
Sacred  History,  is  the  Divine  mind  and  Divine  power, 
exerting  themselves  with  an  extraordinary  and  creative 
energy.  Supernatural  communication  from  the  Deity, 
is  the  great  objective  force  in  this  species  of  human 
history ;  the  foundation  and  principle  of  the  restored 
normal  development  of  humanity.  This  revelation  of 
Himself  on  the  part  of  God,  entering  into  the  midst 
and  mass  of  mankind,  selects  out  a  portion  by  a 
sovereign  act,*  regenerates,  and  moulds,  it  into  a  body 
by  itself,  separate  from  the  Avorld  though  existing  in 
it.      This  body  is  therefore  as   truly  organized,  and 

*  The  full  of  man  is  generic,  and  hence  all  men  are  fallen ;  the 
redemption  of  man  is  individual,  and  electing,  and  consequently  only  a 
portion  arc  saved.  A  catastrophe,  like  spiritual  apostasy,  occurring  at 
a  point  in  human  history  when  humanity  was  a  unit,  and  a  unity,  affects 
the  whole,  indiscriminately,  and  without  exception ;  but  when  man  has 
passed  out  of  this  form  of  existence,  into  that  of  a  series,  and  succession, 
of  individuals,  it  is  plain  that  the  principle  of  individualism  must 
govern  his  restoration,  and  that  redemption,  consequently,  cannot  be 
generic  and  universal. 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  83 

organic,  as  that  still  larger  body  which  is  denominated 
the  race,  or  that  still  smaller  body  which  is  denomi- 
nated the  state.  It  exhibits  a  process  possessing  all 
the  properties  of  an  expanding  germ,  and  has  a  his- 
tory which  is  vitally  connected,  and  reciprocally 
related,  from  beginning  to  end. 

We  pass,  now,  to  consider  the  characteristics  of 
this  process  of  restoring  the  true  development  of 
human  nature,  in  order  to  obtain  a  yet  fuller  appre- 
hension of  the  distinctive  peculiarities  of  Church 
History. 

1.  Observe,  first,  that  the  development  of  regenerate 
man,  here  upon  earth,  is  only  imperfectly  normal.  It 
differs  from  what  it  would  have  been,  had  human 
nature  unfolded  from  the  original  germ,  without  any 
fall,  or  deviation  from  the  prescribed  career,  by  exhibit- 
ing a  mixture  of  true  and  false  elements.  The  church 
on  earth,  is  not  perfect.  Its  career  contains  sections 
of  corruption,  decay,  decline ;  characteristics  that  can- 
not belong  to  a  perfect  process;  elements  that  do  nol 
belong  to  Church  History  in  its  narrower  sense,  of 
denoting  only  what  ought  to  be  the  process,  consider- 
ing the  perfection  of  the  germ  from  which  it  proceeds, 
For  inasmuch  as  the  potential  basis,  in  this  instance, 
is  the  perfect  Revelation  of  God,  the  development  that 
proceeds  should  upon  abstract  principles  be  an  entirely 


84  THE    r  II  ILO  SOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

perfect  one  also.  Since  the  inward  life  is  supernat- 
ural and  divine,  the  manifestation  ought  to  be  so 
likewise,  and  entirely  unmixed  with  foreign  and  false 
elements. 

But  the  actual  history  of  the  Church,  does  not  thus 
exactly  conform  to  this  its  ideal.  It  only  approximates 
to  it,  and  hence  the  restoring  of  the  true  development 
of  humanity,  is  not  that  pure  and  spotless  process, 
which  the  history  of  man  was  originally  intended  to 
exhibit,  and  which  it  would  have  presented,  had  the 
first  divinely  designed  unfolding  taken  place.  The 
history  of  the  Christian  Church,  though  vastly  different 
from  that  of  the  secular  world,  though  different  in 
kind  from  it,  is  by  no  means  that  perfectly  serene 
and  beautiful  evolution  which  is  going  on  in  the 
heavenly  world. 

Church  History,  consequently,  as  we  actually  find 
it,  exhibits  a  complex  appearance,  a  double  move- 
ment. It  is  both  the  expansion  of  a  true,  and  the  de- 
struction of  a  false,  evolution.  As,  in  the  instance  of 
the  individual  Christian,  the  career  consists  of  a  double 
activity,  the  living  unto  righteousness  and  the  dying 
unto  sin,  so  in  the  instance  of  the  Church,  the  entire 
history  consists  of  the  gi'owth  of  the  spiritual  and 
holy,  and  the  resistance  of  the  natural  and  sinful. 
The  fight  between  the  flesh  and  the  spirit,  in  the  sin- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  85 

de  believer,  is  both  a  part,  and  a  symbol,  of  that 
great  contest  between  two  opposing  principles,  which 
constitutes  the  charm  of  Church  History,  and  renders 
it,  for  the  contemplative  mind,  by  far  the  most  inter- 
esting, as  it  is  the  most  important,  part  of  the  Univer- 
sal History  of  man  on  the  globe. 

Hence,  although  we  pass  into  the  sphere  of  the  Su- 
pernatural, into  the  midst  of  supernatural  ideas,  germs, 
and  forces,  on  passing  from  Secular  to  Sacred  History, 
we  yet  by  no  means  go  into  a  w^orld  of  calm.  We 
enter  a  world  of  thicker  moral  storm,  and  of  hot- 
ter mental  conflict,  than  is  to  be  found  in  any  sec- 
tion, or  in  the  whole  range,  of  Secular  History.  But 
there  is  this  great  difierence  :  the  storm  is  destined  to 
become  an  eternal  calm,  and  the  conflict  to  end  in  an 
eternal  triumph.  This  complexity,  in  the  process,  is 
destined  to  become  a  simple  unity,  and  this  antago- 
nism a  perfect  harmony.  The  dualism,  in  the  now 
imperfectly  normal  history,  is  ultimately  to  vanish,  and 
God  is  to  be  all  in  all.  But  so  long  as  the  church  is 
militant,  and  until  it  enters  upon  its  eternal  heavenly 
career,  it  cannot  exhibit  that  unmixed,  and  pure,  pro- 
cess of  holy  life  and  growth,  which  the  history  of  man 
was  originally  intended  to  be.  The  secondary  restor- 
ing of  a  normal  development  is  not,  like  the  primary 
unfolding,  a  tranquil  and  unhindered  process ;  and  this 

8 


86 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 


is  the  difference   between  the  history  of  an  unfallen, 
and  that  of  a  regenerate,  spirit. 

2.  Notice,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  develop- 
ment in  Church  History  is  not  symmetrical.  We  see 
the  same  lack  of  entire  harmony,  in  the  life  of  the 
church,  that  we  do  in  that  of  the  individual  believer. 
No  christian  biography  exhibits  a  perfect  proportion  in 
the  features  of  the  religious  character,  or  a  perfect 
blending  of  all  the  elements  of  the  christian  expe- 
rience. The  man  is  either  too  contemplative,  or  too 
practical,  too  vehement,  or  too  tranquil.  There  is 
but  one  individual  religious  life,  that  is  completely 
symmetrical,  and  that  is  the  life  of  the  Divine  found- 
er, and  exemplar,  of  Christianity.  There  are,  indeed, 
different  degrees  of  approximation  to  this  ideal  sym- 
metry. Some  characters  are  much  more  proportion- 
ate, and  beautiful,  than  others,  but  there  is  not  a  sin- 
gle one  of  them  all,  that  is  so  exactly  conformed  to 
the  Divine  model,  as  to  be  an  exact  reproduction  of 
it.  Ullmann  speaks  of  a  point  in  religion,  beyond 
which  any  further  improvement  is,  not  only  impossi- 
ble but,  inconceivable.  He  describes  it,  as  being  that 
completed  oneness  of  the  human  soul  with  God,  in 
which  the  former  is  determined  in  all  its  movements, 
and  moulded  in  all  its  experiences,  by  the  latter,  and 
yet  feels  that  this  determination,  and  moulding  by  the 


THE  nilLOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.        87 

Divine,  is  no  pantheistic  absorption,  nor  external  com- 
pulsion, but  its  own  most  free,  and  personal,  self-de- 
termination, and  self-formation.*  But  no  christian 
biography  discloses  such  a  perfect  christian  conscious- 
ness as  this.  The  holiest  saints  on  earth  complain 
of  inward  conflict  and  an  interest  separate  from  God, 
mourn  over  a  part  of  their  experience,  as  that  of  in- 
dwelling sin,  and  confess,  that  even  on  the  holy  side, 
there  is  too  much  that  is  ill-balanced,  and  dispropor- 
tionate. Not  one  of  them  can  apply  to  himself,  in 
their  highest  unqualified  sense,  these  words  of  St. 
Paul,  "  I  live,  and  yet  not  I,  but  Christ  liveth  in  me." 
Not  one  of  them  has  been  a  perfect  representative, 
in  his  earthly  life,  as  he  will  be  in  his  heavenly,  of 
the  symmetrical  holiness  of  Jesus  Christ.  Precisely 
the  same  is  seen  in  the  larger  sphere  of  the  Church  ; 
for  the  individual  life  is  the  miniature  of  the  general, 
the  microcosm  mirrors  the  macrocosm.  As  we  ti'ace 
the  historic  development  along  down  the  ages  and 
generations  of  believers,  we  find  the  same,  greater  or 
less,  appoximation  to  symmetry,  but  never  absolute 
proportion. 

If  we  look  at  the  history  of  Christianity  upon  its 
practical  side,  we  find  it  an  imperfectly  symmetrical 

*  Studien  und  Kritiken,  1840.  p.  48. 


88  T  II  E    P  II  I  L  O  S  O  P  H  Y    O  F    II  I  S  T  O  R  Y  . 

process.  There  are  indications  in  the  Apostolic  epis- 
tles, themselves,  that  the  gushing  love,  and  glowing 
zeal,  of  the  Apostolic  church,  sometimes  passed  over 
into  an  extreme,  that  injured  the  experience.  The 
strong  side  of  the  character  of  the  early  Christians  is 
their  vivid  life  and  feeling,  and  not  a  discriminating 
knowledge  of  the  christian  system,  or  of  human  nature 
at  large.  They  apprehended  truth  chiefly  in  the  way 
of  feeling  and  experience,  and  expected  to  find  their  own 
warm  affection  for  it,  in  every  one  who  professed  dis- 
cipleship.  Hence  their  liability  to  be  deceived  by  false 
teachers,  and  their  readiness  to  be  led  astray  by  false 
doctrine ;  traits  to  which  the  Apostolic  epistles  often 
allude,  and  against  which  they  seek  to  guard,  by  a 
more  thorough  instruction  of  this  glowing  love,  and 
cautious  guidance  of  this  ardent  zeal.  Paul,  speaking 
to  the  E,oman  church  of  those  who  by  good  words 
and  fair  speeches  would  deceive  the  hearts  of  the  sim- 
ple, (uKaKcov,  the  artless  and  guileless  good),  adds,  "  I 
would  have  you  wise  unto  that  which  is  good,  and 
simple  concerning  evil."*  In  writing  to  the  Corinthian 
church,  he  enjoins  it  upon  them  not  to  be  children  in 
understanding ;  in  malice  they  might  be  children, 
utterly  unacquainted  with  any  such  thing,  but  in  un- 

*  Romans,  xvi.  18,  19. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.        89 

derstanding  they  must  be  men.*  The  frequent  warn- 
ings, against  false  teachers  and  doctrine,  in  the  epis- 
tles of  John,  we  need  not  specify.  So  liable  was  the 
guileless  simplicity,  and  pure  love,  of  the  Apostolic 
church,  to  be  imposed  upon;  so  defective  was  this 
first  form  of  the  christian  experience,  on  the  side  of 
knowledge ;  that  the  Head  of  the  church,  made  up 
for  the  deficiency,  and  protected  his  people  by  a  special 
Charism,  or  miraculous  gift,  viz :  the  power  of  discern- 
ing spirits,  of  reading  the  inward  and  real  character 
of  pretended  teachers  of  Christianity. 

When  we  pass  from  this  first  age,  to  a  succeeding 
one,  like  that  between  Constantine  and  Hildebrand, 
or,  still  more,  like  that  between  Hildebrand  and  the 
Reformation,  we  find  the  christian  character  defec- 
tive in  just  the  opposite  respect.  Speaking  compara- 
tively, as  we  always  must  when  comparing  historic 
periods  with  each  other,  we  may  say,  that  the  sim- 
plicity and  love  have  been  lost  in  the  extreme  of 
knowledge  and  discrimination.  The  adoption  of 
Christianity  by  the  temporal  power,  secularized  it,  and 
while  the  first  Christians  were  too  ignorant  of  men 
and  things,  the  Grecian-Roman,  and  the  Roman- 
Catholic,  church  knew  them  too  well,  for  the  guile- 

*  1   Corinthians,  xiv.  20. 

8* 


90  THE     PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORV. 

lessness  and  simple  love  of  a  symmetrical  christian 
character.  They  obeyed  the  first  half  of  om'  Lord's 
injunction,  but  not  the  last.  They  were  wise  as 
serpents,  but  were  not  harmless  as  doves. 

If  again  we  look  at  the  historical  development  of 
Christianity,  on  the  theoretic  side,  as  a  system  of 
doctrines,  we  find  the  same  defect  in  the  process.  — 
Some  ages  undervalue  knowledge  altogether,  and 
exhibit  little  or  no  scientific  interest  of  any  kind. — 
Others  are  almost  exclusively  speculative.  It  is  as 
impossible  to  find  an  age,  as  it  is  an  individual,  in 
whom  <yvcoai<;  and  ircarL'?,  light  and  life,  knowledge  and 
feeling,  are  mingled  in  exact  proportions.  Hence  the 
whole  series  of  periods  and  ages,  contains  more  of 
the  lineaments  of  a  perfect  symmetry,  than  any  single 
one  of  them  does,  and  the  full  idea  of  Christianity 
approximates  nearer  to  a  full  embodiment,  in  the 
Church  Universal,  than  in  any  particular  branch  of  it. 

This,  therefore,  is  a  proper  place  to  allude  to  the 
error,  of  selecting  some  one  ecclesiastical  period,  as 
the  model  for  all  time,  and  some  one  church,  as  the 
ideal  for  all  churches.  It  is  a  false  view  of  history, 
that  would  set  up  the  church  of  the  two  centuries 
preceding,  and  the  two  centuries  following,  the 
Nicene  council,  as  that  one  particular  section,  by 
which    the  church   of  the   present,   and   the   future, 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  91 

should  form  itself.     The  attempt  of  the  Oxford  party, 
in  the  English  chm'ch,  to   revive   Nicene  Christianity, 
as  the  normal  type,  was  utterly  un historic  as  well  as 
irrational.      That  period   undoubtedly  had  its   excel- 
lences, and  just  as  undoubtedly  its  defects.  Its  Chris- 
tianity lacked  a  perfect  symmetry.     It  can,  therefore, 
furnish  only  some  features  that  are  to  be  imitated,  and 
perpetuated,  by  the   church  of  the  present,  and  the 
church  of  the  future.     Its  determined  opposition  to 
heretical  conceptions,  and  its  comparatively  vigorous 
missionary  spirit,  are  two  characteristics  of  this  period 
that  deserve  to  be  reproduced  in  all  coming  time. — 
The  church,  in  this  pantheistic  and  rationalistic  age, 
should  keep  fast  hold,  of  those  statements  of  the  doc- 
trine of  the    Trinity,  and   of  the  Person   of    Christ, 
which  had  their  origin  in  this  period.     The  church,  in 
this,  and  in  every  age,  should  retain  the  substance  of 
those  profound  anthropological  views,  which  were  the 
result  of  the  great  controversy  between  Augustine  and 
Pelagius.       But  surely  no  mind,  that  has  any  just 
conception  of  the  spiritual  nature  of  Christianity,  can 
desire    that   such   views  of  prelacy   and  primacy,  of 
celibacy  and  monasticism,  of  the  eflicacy  of  the  sacra- 
jnents  in  connection  with  the  meritoriousness  of  good 
works,  as  prevailed  in  this  patristic  period,  should  be 
recommended   to  the  church,  in  all  time,  for  servile 


92  TlIK    r  II  I  I,  OS  OP  IT  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

reception.  He  who  follows  the  history  of  the  Chris- 
tian Keligion,  from  its  beginning  down  to  the  present, 
will  not  go  to  the  Nicene  period,  for  the  most  accurate 
statement  of  the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  or 
for  the  most  scriptural  conceptions  of  the  nature  of 
christian  virtue,  and  of  ecclesiastical  polity.  He 
know^s  of  other  periods,  whose  more  special  and  suc- 
cessful function,  it  was,  to  unfold  these  latter  doctrines, 
as  it  was  that  of  the  Nicene  period,  to  construct  the 
doctrines  of  Theology  and  Christology. 

As  really,  though  not  equally,  is  it  an  error  to  set 
up  the  Apostolic  church,  as  the  model  for  all  time.  — 
That  brotherly  affection,  and  that  tender  yet  deathless 
love  towards  the  Redeemer,  must  be  a  model  for  all 
ages,  and  will  probably  never  be  excelled  by  any  gen- 
eration of  Christians.  But  the  conflict  which  Chris- 
tianity has  to  wage  with  a  cultivated  skepticism,  and 
a  subtle  heresy,  and  that  prudent  discrimination  which 
is  needed,  in  some  emergencies,  to  protect  the  earthly 
interests  of  the  church,  call  for  a  development  of 
Christianity  in  an  intellectual  and  scientific  direction 
of  which  we  see  little  or  nothing  in  the  Apostolic 
brotherhood.*  The  primitive  Christians  were,  in  ' 
reality,  the  pupils  and   children  of  the  apostles,  who 

*  This  Church  might  say,  in  reference  to  scientific  statements  of  the 
doctrines  of  Scripture,  as  the  unlettered  woman  spoken  of  in  Chalmers' 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.        93 

answered  all  their  questions,  relieved  all  their  doubts, 
and  fought  all  their  intellectual  conflicts  for  them. 
JBut  the  apostles  were  an  order  of  men  which  has 
not  been  perpetuated,  to  be  the  guardians  and  instruc- 
tors of  the  church  in  every  emergency.  Their  writings 
are  left,  it  is  true,  but  how  often  would  even  the 
didactic  and  thoughtful  theologian,  or  the  learned 
but  perplexed  council  or  assembly,  after  all  its  diligent 
study  of  these  writings,  have  gladly  betaken  them- 
selves, like  the  church  at  Corinth  or  Rome  when  in 
difficulty,  to  the  inspired  mind  of  a  living  apostle,  for 
a  further  communication  specially  adapted  to  the  case 
in  hand.  This  age  of  pupilage  could  not  continue, 
and  therefore  it  cannot  be  set  forth,  any  more  than 
any  other  one,  as  the  model  to  which  all  after  ages 
are  to  be  conformed  in  every  respect. 

In  short,  the  student  of  the  whole  course  of  his- 
torical development  will  seek  to  make  up  for  the 
want  of  that  symmetry  which  is  not  to  be  found  in 
any  one  section,  by  combining  excellences  that  are 
found  in  each,  and  rejecting  the  defects  that  are 
found  in  all.  For  only  in  the  career  of  the  church  as 
a  whole,  does  he   find  the  nearest  approximation   to 

memoirs,  did,  when  asked  some  theological  questions  respecting  the 
person  of  the  Redeemer,  on  her  examination  fqf  admission  to  the 
church  ;   "  I  cannot  describe  him,  but  I  would  die  for  him." 


94       THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

that  church  "  without   spot   or  wrinkle,"  spoken   ot 
in  Scripture,  and  of  which  Divine  Revelation  is  the 
originating  power  and  perfecting  principle. 

3.   Notice,  in  the  third  place,  that  the  development 
in  Church  History  is  not  uniform  in  every  part. 

This  duplicity  in  the  restoring  process,  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  hinders  the  movement.  If  there  were 
only  a  single  divine  principle,  and  no  remainders  of  a 
sinful  human  one,  in  the  regenerated  soul,  the  entire 
career  of  the  christian  church,  would  be  one  unin- 
terrupted onward  motion,  one  continual  triumph  of 
truth  on  the  earth.  But  the  religious  life  is  enfeebled, 
and  diminished,  by  the  carnal  and  secular,  in  both  the 
individual,  and  the  church.  In  one  age  Christianity 
is  vigorous,  and  its  rapid  extension  into  pagan  regions 
is  the  consequence.  A  succeeding  age  presents  the 
melancholy  spectacle  of  decay  and  decline  in  these 
parent  churches,  and,  perhaps,  the  beginning  of  the 
same  process  in  the  newly  formed  societies.  North- 
ern Africa  from  the  second  to  the  fifth  century  was 
the  seat  of  a  very  vigorous  religion,  both  in  practical 
and  speculative  respects.  TertuUian,  Origen,  and 
Augustine,  represent  a  Christianity  as  influential  as 
any  that  lies  back  of  the  Reformation.  But  these 
North  African^  churches  disappear  from  Christendom, 
with  the  suddenness  of  the  lost  Pleiad  from  the  sky, 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  95 

and,  from  the  time  of  the  Mohammedan  invasion  to  the 
present,  that  whole  region  has  no  place  in  Church  His- 
tory. Such  a  phenomenon  as  this,  cannot  be  accounted 
for  by  external  causes.  Terrible  as  the  Saracen  invasion 
was,  a  civilization  and  culture  resting  upon  a  sound 
and  healthy  Christianity,  in  Northern  Africa,  would 
have  stopped,  and  beaten  back,  the  Saracen,  as  instan- 
taneously, and  decisively,  as  he  was  by  Charles 
Martel  and  his  warlike  Franks.  History,  secular  as 
well  as  sacred,  shows,  that  no  form  of  heathenism,  or  of 
worldly  power,  can  compete  with  a  true  and  genuine 
Christendom.  But  an  interior  process,  of  decline  and 
decay,  had  gone  on  in  the  very  heart  of  these  churches 
and  this  christian  society.  The  moral  and  intellec- 
tual strength,  had  departed,  along  with  the  pure 
scriptural  piety  of  the  founders,  and  first  witnesses, 
and  the  whole  population  fell  an  easy  prey  to  the 
fanatic  zeal  of  the  Mohammedan.  Instances  like  this 
throng  upon  the  mind,  but  a  single  one  is  sufficient 
to  show,  that  the  external  development  of  Christianity 
is  constantly  liable  to  interruption  in  parts  and  sec- 
tions of  the  entire  career.  The  same  fact  stares  us  in 
the  face,  if  we  look  at  its  internal  history.  Compare 
the  present  condition  of  the  Eastern  church,  with 
what  it  was,  when  it  took  the  lead  of  the  Western  ; 
when    its    Athanasius    was    the    theologian,    and    its 


96  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

golden-mouthed  Chrysostom  the  orator,  for  all  Chris- 
tendom. If  this  church  could,  this  day,  be  put  back 
fifteen  hundred  years,  it  would  be  in  advance  of  its 
present  position.  The  development  has  been  inter- 
mitted for  this  length  of  time,  and  will  continue  to  be, 
until  an  infusion  of  fresh  life,  through  the  missionary 
efforts  of  Protestant  churches  and  the  Divine  blessing 
upon  tliem,  occurs. 

4.  Notice,  in  the  fourth  place,  as  a  sequence  from 
these  defects,  in  the  development,  which  we  have 
mentioned,  that  in  ecclesiastical  history  we  can 
affirm  a  normal  progress  only  as  we  view  the  church 
as  a  whole.  Truth  and  piety  are  unfolded  in  the  long 
run  of  ages,  though  not  necessarily  in  each  and  every 
one  of  them ;  in  the  general  run  of  churches,  though 
not  necessarily  in  each  and  every  one  of  them.  — 
Though  the  process  is  hindered,  turned  aside,  and 
temporarily  stopped,  by  the  corrupt  free  agency  of 
man,  it  is  yet,  as  a  whole,  under  the  guidance  and 
protection  of  God,  and  therefore  goes  on  ;  if  not  in 
this  nation,  and  age,  yet  in  another.  We  know,  from 
the  promise  of  the  Author  of  Christianity,  that  his 
religion  is  destined  to  a  far  wider  extension,  among 
men,  than  has  yet  been  seen ;  and  upon  this  we  must 
ultimately  rest,  in  order  to  maintain  a  confident  expec- 
tation that  such  will  be  the  fact.     Much  is  sometimes 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  97 

said  of  the  self-realizing  power  of  Christianity,  but 
unless  we  identify  the  system  with  its  Author  ;  unless 
we  think  of  the  Word  and  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  one 
undivided  agency ;  we  cannot  read  certain  chapters 
of  Church  History,  with  any  firm  belief,  that  even 
revealed  truth  Aviil  continue  to  expand  with  genial 
life  within  the  hearts  of  men,  and  exert  a  continuous 
and  mighty  influence  age  after  age.  Take  away 
from  Christianity  the  doctrine  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
the  very  life  of  the  system  disappears.  Take  away 
from  Church  History,  the  actual  dispensation  of  spir- 
itual influences,  and  the  vitality  of  the  process  de- 
parts. And  it  is  because  the  Holy  Spirit  has  never 
left  the  church  as  a  whole,  while  He  has  suspended 
his  quickening  influences  in  sections,  that  we  can  say 
with  the  strictest  truth,  that  the  progress  of  the  great 
whole  has  been  continuous,  though  sometimes  inter- 
rupted in  the  parts. 

5.  Notice  in  the  fifth  place,  that  the  development 
of  a  section  or  an  age,  in  Church  History,  is  often  only 
the  reproduction  of  some  preceding  type.  When 
Christianity  has  declined,  in  a  particular  branch  of 
the  church,  the  reformation  that  takes  place,  is,  really, 
only  the  restoration  of  a  previous  form  of  vital  godli- 
ness. It  is  not,  however,  the  mere  copy  of  an  antece- 
dent period,  containing  no  more  and  no  less  elements, 

9 


98  THE     PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

and  in  just  the  same  proportions.  History  exhibits  no 
fac  similes.  There  is  no  copying  in  a  living  process, 
but  there  is  reproduction,  and  a  great  amount  of 
it.  The  Protestant  Refornfation  was  the  revival  of 
that  genuine  doctrine,  and  holy  life,  which  had  mani- 
fested itself  once  before  in  the  church  of  the  first 
five  centuries.  And  yet,  it  was  not  a  mere  fac  simile 
of  it,  because  the  corrupt  elements,  in  doctrine  and 
morals,  which  began  to  come  in  particularly  after  the 
union  of  Church  and  State  under  Constantine,  were 
expelled  by  the  newly  awakened  religious  life.  The 
feeling  of  guilt,  moreover,  was  more  keen  and  poig- 
nant, and  the  appropriation  of  atonement  more  intel- 
ligent and  cordial,  than  in  the  patristic  period.  Still, 
it  was  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  a  re-production, 
and  it  called  itself  a  re-formation.  The  aim  of  Luther 
was  to  restore  a  piety  that  had  once  before  been  the 
glory  and  strength  of  the  Church,  and  not  to  invent 
any  new  style  of  christian  life.  Probably,  in  the 
outset,  his  desire  was  merely  to  make  the  Roman 
Catholic  church  what  it  was  in  the  first  three  centu- 
ries, before  the  Romish  bishop  had  become  the  Romish 
pope.  And  it  was  not  until  he  saw,  that  the  Romish 
Church  of  1517  was  radically  different,  'in  doctrine 
and  in  practice,  from  the  Roman  Church  of  o50,  and 
radically  different  from  that  invisible  church  to  which 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  99 

he  himself  belonged,  in  common  with  the  holy  of  all 
ages,  that  he  understood  the  true  relation  of  the  invis- 
ible to  the  visible,  and  became  the  instrument  in  the 
hand  of  God  of  continuing  the  life  of  the  church 
invisible,  or  the  true  Catholic  church,  under  a  new 
outward  organization.  The  ecclesiastical  progress 
which  Luther  desired  for  the  age  in  which  he  lived, 
was  a  return  to  an  age  that  lay  more  than  a  thou- 
sand years  nearer  the  first  promulgation  and  spread 
of  Christianity. 

If  we  turn  to  the  theology  of  the  Reformatory  pe- 
riod, the  same  fact  meets  us.  The  two  theologians 
of  this  as:e  were  Melancthon  and  Calvin.  Examine 
the  "Loci  Communes"  of  the  one,  and  the  "Insti- 
tutes "  of  the  other,  and  see  the  substantial  reproduc- 
tion of  an  earlier  theology.  From  the  beginning  to 
the  end  of  the  Institutes,  in  particular,  there  is  a  con- 
tinual appeal  to  Augustine.  Calvin,  though  of  sin- 
gularly strong  and  independent  mind,  and  thor- 
oughly convinced  that  the  Scriptures  are  the  only 
infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice,  and  thoroughly 
acquainted  with  them  through  a  most  exhausUve  exe- 
gesis, nevertheless  uniformly  cites  the  exegetical  and 
systematic  opinions  of  the  Latin  father  as  corrobo- 
rative of  his  own.  And  the  relation  between  the  two 
systems,  is  not  merely  that  of  confirmation  and  cor- 


100  T  HE    P  H  I  I,  O  S  O  P  II  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

roboration.  So  far  as  human  influence  was  concern- 
ed, the  one  grew  out  of  the  other,  and  the  other  formed 
the  one.  Thus  was  it  regarded  as  a  progressive  ad- 
vance, by  the  leading  spirits  of  the  Reformation,  to 
revive  an  antecedent  form  of  faith  and  practice,  and 
in  the  sixteenth  century  to  return  to  the  first  five  cen- 
turies. 

Do  w^e  not  in  these  facts  find  an  incidental,  but 
strong,  corroboration  of  the  position,  that  Church  His 
tory  is  a  process  of  organic  development  ?  Some- 
thing more  than  mere  chronological  sequence,  without 
action  and  reaction,  is  needed  to  account  for  such 
phenomena  as  we  have  been  noticing.  If  the  move- 
ment of  Christianity  in  the  world,  were  merely  recti- 
linear, straight  forward  in  one  line,  we  ought  to  find 
each  succeeding  age  possessed  of  all  that  the  preced- 
ing had  possessed,  together  with  something  more  of 
its  own.  In  this  case,  the  last  must  be  wisest  and 
holiest  of  all.  But  such  is  not  the  movement.  The 
motion  is  circular,  and  spiral,  rather  than  straight  on- 
ward. The  process  is  organic,  and  not  mechanic,  or 
mathematical.  The  line  returns  into  itself,  so  that, 
as  in  the  old  philosophy,  it  is  the  circle,  and  not  the 
right  line,  that  symbolizes  the  living  process. 

It  is  from  this  rectilinear  rather  than  spiral  concep- 
tion, this  mechanical  rather  than  organic  idea,  of  His- 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    H  I  S  T  O  R  >' 


101 


tory,  that  the  common  fallacy  arises,  of  supposing 
that  each  age,  as  matter  of  com'se,  contains  all  the 
development  of  the  past,  merely  because  it  happens  to 
be  chronologically  last  in  the  series.  This  error  rests 
upon  the  assumption,  that  juxta-position  and  location 
determine  everything  in  History,  and  that  a  man  liv- 
ing in  the  nineteenth  century  is  wiser  of  course  than 
one  livins:  in  the  seventeenth,  because  nineteen  are 
two  more  than  seventeen.  This  would  be  the  case,  if 
History  were  not  an  organic  process,  in  which,  a  part 
that  has  come  into  existence  last  in  the  order  of  time, 
is  very  often  inferior  and  degenerate  in  point  of  qual- 
ity. The  latest  blossoms  are  not  always  fruit  blos- 
soms. We  have  seen  that  in  any  organism  whatever, 
the  parts  are  reciprocally  means  and  end.  Each 
exists  for  all  and  all  for  each,  so  that  no  one  part  can 
be  exalted  to  a  supremacy  over  all  the  others.  Hence, 
in  History  there  is  a  continual  inter-dependency.  No 
one  age  is  superior  to  all  others.  Some  past  periods, 
in  the  history  of  the  church,  have  been  in  advance  of 
the  present  in  some  particulars.  The  present  is  never 
in  advance  of  all  the  past,  in  all  respects.  The  age 
of  the  Reformation  was  in  advance  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  in  a  profound  and  living  apprehension  of 
the  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith.  The  best  Sote- 
riology  is  derived  from  the  sixteenth  century.     The 

9* 


10:2  THE     [•  11  1  I,  (IS  ()  1*  II  V    OK    HISTORY. 

creeds  of  the  Reformers,  in  connection  with  the  practi- 
cal and  theoretical  writings  by  which  they  defended  and 
explained  them,  have  been  the  chief  human  instrument 
in  forming  the  present  Protestant  theory  of  Redemp- 
tion. The  present  age,  on  the  other  hand,  has  advanced 
greatly  beyond  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centu- 
ries, in  respect  to  the  application  of  Christianity  to 
the  wants  of  the  world,  and  the  exercise  of  a  practical 
missionary  spirit.  Thus,  one  age  is  the  teacher  of 
another,  the  pupil  of  a  second,  the  stimulator  of  a 
third.  In  some  way  or  another,  each  of  the  historic 
sections  sustains  a  relation  of  action  and  reaction ; 
and  in  and  by  this  interagency,  the  total  process  of 
evolution  goes  forward.  Looking  at  the  parts,  we 
find  them  deficient ;  looking  at  the  whole,  we  find  it 
approximately  complete. 

At  this  point,  then,  let  us  retrace  our  steps,  and 
succinctly  state  the  results  to  which  we  have  come. 

In  the  first  division  of  the  subject,  we  obtained  the 
definition  of  Abstract  History.  We  found  it  to  be 
development  in  the  abstract ;  a  dynamic  process  mere- 
ly, without  any  qualification,  in  which  the  connection 
of  parts  and  elements  is  necessary,  natural,  and  or- 
ganic. This  is  the  most  general  idea,  and  is  capable 
of  being  applied  to  each  and  every  particular  species 
of  history,  be  it  in  the  domain  of  Nature  or  of  Spirit. 


THE    P  JI  I  L  O  S  O  P  H  Y    O  F    HISTORY.  103 

But  inasmuch  as  it  is  universal  and  abstract,  it  does 
not,  of  itself,  determine  the  character  and  value  of  the 
process.  It  simply  indicates  that  it  is  an  evolution 
from  a  potential  basis,  but  with  the  specific  qualities 
of  this,  the  abstract  conception  has  no  concern,  and 
hence  the  doctrine  of  expansion  is  applicable,  indiffer- 
ently, to  a  latency  that  is  good,  or  to  a  latency  that  is 
evil ;  to  a  germ  originated  by  the  Creator,  or  to  a  germ 
originated  by  the  creature.  This  rigorously  abstract 
conception  of  the  idea,  precludes  that  imperfect  and  nar- 
row apprehension  of  it,  which  insists,  either  expressly 
or  tacitly,  that  every  germ  is  of  necessity  good,  and 
that  all  development  is  an  inevitable  normal  process. 
In  the  second  division  of  the  subject,  we  have  ob- 
tained a  definition  of  Secular  History.  This  we  have 
found  to  be  a  particular  species  of  development ;  that, 
viz :  of  a  false  germ.  The  common  and  profane  his- 
tory of  man  is  an  illegitimate  process,  but  none  the 
less  an  organic  one,  to  which  the  doctrine  of  expan- 
sion applies  with  its  fullest  force.  The  difference  be- 
tween the  actual  and  the  ideal  unfolding  of  human- 
ity, relates  not  to  the  continuous  nature  of  the  pro- 
cesses themselves,  but  to  the  specific  difference  be- 
tween their  potential  bases.  The  germ  of  the  latter, 
is  the  creation  of  the  infinite  will,  while  that  of  the 
former,  is  the  product  of  a  finite  faculty,  in  its  fall 
from  God. 


104  Til  JO    I'llILOSOniY    OF    HISTORY. 

In  the  third  division  of  the  subject  we  find  a  second 
concrete  species  of  history ;  that  of  the  Christian 
Church.  The  foundation  of  this,  is  laid  by  a  super- 
natural power,  which  is  strictly  creative,  and  as  such 
re-originates  the  lost  principle  of  spiritual  life  in  the 
apostate  creature.  From  this  germinal  point,  under 
the  maintaining  and  educating  energy  of  the  same 
Divine  power  that  established  it,  a  new  development 
of  humanity  commences,  which  gradually  destroys 
and  expels  the  relics  of  the  false  germ,  and  though 
hindered  and  imperfect  in  its  stadia  here  below,  runs 
its  round,  and  becomes  a  perfect  and  serene  evolution 
in  eternity. 

Neither  one,  of  these  two  concrete  processes,  can 
be  or  become  a  potential  basis  for  the  other.  Each  can 
proceed  only  from  its  own  germ.  The  origination  of  a 
false  germ  in  the  place  of  the  expelled  true  one,  and 
the  restoration  of  the  true  one  in  the  place  of  a  dying 
false  one,  are,  both  of  them,  events  that  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  the  theory  of  development.  There 
is  no  passage  in  the  way  of  expansion^  from  one  to 
the  other  basis. 


LECTURE    IV. 

THE  VERIFYING  TEST  IN  CHURCH  HISTORY. 

Having  now  determined  and  applied  the  idea  of 
development,  and  thereby  come  to  an  understanding 
of  the  natm-e  of  both  abstract  and  concrete  History, 
the  second  question  mentioned  in  the  first  lecture,  viz  : 
how  may  we  verify  our  a  priori  conception  in  any 
particular  instance  ?  still  remains  to  be  answered.  — 
This  introduces  to  our  notice,  the  general  subject  of 
tests  in  History.  To  follow  out  this  subject  into  all 
its  branches,  would  carry  us  far  beyond  the  limits  we 
have  prescribed  for  oiirselves,  and  we  shall  accordingly, 
as  in  a  previous  instance,  confine  the  discussion  chiefly 
to  ecclesiastical  history. 

Lord  Bacon,  in  the  Novum  Organum,  teaches  that 
"  the  sciences  require  a  form  of  induction  capable  of 
explaining  and  separating  experiments,  and  coming 
to  a  certain  conclusion,  by  a  proper  series  of  rejections 
and  exclusions."  *  This  "  form  of  induction, "  in  other 
places  he  terras  a  "  method,"  or  "  clue,"  by  which  the 

*  Tlic  distribution  of  the  work. 


106  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

mind  is  to  be  led  tlirough  the  bewildering  multitude 
of  phenomena  and  experiments,  without  being  con- 
fused by  their  variety,  and  deceived  by  their  contra- 
riety.* By  it  he  means  that  correct  a  priori  conception 
of  a  thing,  in  the  light  of  which,  the  inquirer  is  to 
detect  all  that  properly  belongs  to  it,  and  to  reject  all 
that  does  not.  The  reader  of  Bacon  is  struck  with 
the  frequency  with  which  he  speaks  of  "rejections," 
and  "  exclusions,"  in  the  investigation  of  nature.  He 
everywhere  assumes  that  there  is  a  complexity,  a  mix- 
ture, and  to  some  extent  a  contrariety,  in  this  domain, 
that  renders  some  foregoing  tests  necessary,  in  order 
that  the  true  materials  for  science  may  be  discrimin- 
ated from  the  false.  It  is  not  enough  to  employ  the 
senses  in  a  merely  passive  manner,  and  see  all  that  is 
visible,  and  accept  all  that  is  offered ;  to  allow  the 
stream  of  facts  and  appearances  to  flow  along  by  the 
mind,  and  simply  describe  what  has  passed.  Bacon's 
phraseology  often  implies  an  inducing  of  the  mind 
into  the  senses ;  an  introducing,  into  this  complex 
aggregate    of  sensational  materials,    of  a  mental  or 

*  "  "We  must  guide  our  steps  by  a  clue,  and  the  whole  path,  from  tlie 
very  first  perception  of  our  senses,  must  be  secured  by  a  determined 
method."    PreAsce  to  the  Novum  Organum. 

"Nothing  can  be  known,  without  a  determined  order  or  method." 
The  distribution  of  the  work. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.      107 

rational  principle,  that  is  to  simplify  and  organize ;  in 
short,  an  induction  of  a  method  or  an  idea  inwards,  as 
well  as  a  deduction  of  particular  conclusions  outwards.* 
Opposed  as  this  sagacious  and  thoroughly  English 
mind  was,  to  the  unverified  and  mere  conjectures  of 
the  fancy,  such  as  the  alchemists,  e.  g.,  employed  in- 
investigating  nature,  he  was  not  opposed  to  the 
initiating  ideas,  and  pre-conceived  methods,  of  the 
contemplative  scientific  mind.  The  fictions  of  occult 
qualities,  and  hidden  spirits,  he  rejected,  but  his  own 
map  of  the  great  kingdom  of  nature,  with  his  full  list 
of  a  priori  tests  and  capital  experiments,  to  guide  the 
inquirer  through  a  region  which  he  has  not  yet 
travelled  over,  and  in  which  Bacon  himself  had 
entered  only  here  and  there  by  actual  experiment 
and  observation  ;  this  example  of  Bacon,  shows  that 
he  regarded  the  sober  and  watchful  employment  of 
the  a  priori  method,  by  the  scientific  mind,  to  be  not 
only  legitimate  but  necessary.f 

*  "  The  form  of  induction  of  which  the  logicians  speak,  which  proceeds 
from  bare  enumeration,  is  puerile,  and  its  conclusions  precarious."  The 
distribution  of  the  work. 

"  The  logicians  rest  contented  with  the  immediate  information  of  the 
senses."     The  distribution  etc. 

"  Our  method  rejects  that  operation  of  tlie  mind  which  follows  close 
(i.  e.,  servilely)  tipon  the  senses."    Preface  to  Novum  Organum. 

t  See  his  "  Sylva  Sylvarum,"  and  "  Preparation  for  a.  natural  and 
experimental  history." 


108  THE    r  H  I  L  O  S  O  P  H  Y    OF    HISTORY. 

Such  a  "form  of  induction"  is  needed  in  history, 
in  order  that  the  investigator  may  make  the  requisite 
detections,  adoptions,  rejections,  and  exclusions.  For 
this  science  is  not  a  miscellany  of^  all  that  has  hap- 
pened. The  historic  spirit  is  not  an  undiscriminating 
one.  The  historian  needs  to  reject  as  well  as  to 
accept;  to  distinguish  the  normal  from  the  false  devel- 
opment ;  to  detect  the  element  of  error  in  the  mass 
of  truth,  or  the  element  of  truth  in  the  mass  of  error. 
It  is  not  enough  merely  to  daguerreotype  an  age  ;  to 
simply  hold  up  a  mirror  that  passively  reflects  all  that 
occurred.  This  is  the  Chronicle,  but  not  the  History. 
It  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  and  dramatic  manner 
of  representing  the  past,  and  furnishes  the  materials 
for  the  proper  history.  All  true  history  has  found 
its  stuff  in  this  minute,  and  passive,  representation 
of  the  chronicle.  Grecian  history  took  its  beginning 
in  that  body  of  narrative  poems  and  legends,  which 
extends  from  Homer  to  Herodotus,  and  though  this 
latter  is  styled  the  father  of  Grecian  history,  yet  the 
student  feels,  on  passing  from  that  easy  and  childlike 
credulity  which  records  everything  with  equal  serious- 
ness, to  the  searching  and  philosophic  criticism  of 
Thucydides,  that  with  the  latter  the  history,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  chronicles,  of  Greece  begins.  Roman 
history  springs  out  of  the  legends  of  the  monarchical 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.       109 

period,  and  such  annals  as  those  of  Fabius  Pictor,  and, 
we  must  add,  such  narrativ-e  as  that  of  Livy.  English 
history  derives  its  matter  from  the  prose  and  metrical 
chronicles  of  the  monks  from  600  to  1300.  Now  if 
it  were  the  great  aim  of  the  historian,  to  merely  depic- 
ture the  past  exactly  as  it  was  upon  its  surface  ;  to 
place  the  reader  in  the  process  as  an  actor,  and  not 
above  it  as  a  judge  ;  certainly  the  chronicle  would  be 
the  true  and  highest  form  of  historic  narrative.  Read 
the  chronicles  of  Froissart,  and  see  with  what  minute 
fidelity  everything  Is  related,  and  with  what  dramatic 
vividness,  and  interest,  the  scenes  of  pacific  and  of  war- 
like life  are  made  to  pass  before  the  mind.  But  why 
are  we  unsatisfied  with  this  account  of  the  contest 
between  France  and  England  in  those  centuries,  and 
why  can  we  not  accept  it  as  history  ?  It  is  because 
there  is  in  the  narrative  none  of  that  discriminating 
spirit,  which  is  able  to  elevate  the  important  and 
depress  the  unimportant ;  to  let  the  causes  of  events, 
the  ideas  and  forces  of  the  period,  stand  out  with  bold 
prominence.  Because  in  short,  the  chronicle  teaches 
none  of  the  lessons,  and  exhibits  none  of  the  philoso- 
phy, of  history. 

It  is  plain  therefore  that  the  historian  must  carry  an 
idea,  a  method,  in  the  phrase  of  Bacon,  a  "  form  of 
induction,"  into  the  world  of  human  life,  as  well  as 

10 


110  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

into  the  material  world,  if  he  would  exhibit  its  deep 
meaning  and  significance.  By  this  he  will  be  able  to 
distinguish  the  causes  from  the  effects,  and  to  present 
them  in  their  proper  proportions  and  relations  to  each 
other ;  to  refer  the  phenomena  to  their  grounds,  and 
make  the  latter  prominent  above  the  former;  to  con- 
dense minor  and  unimportant  matter  and  expand 
what  is  fundamental,  and  especially  to  detect  and 
show  what  belongs  to  the  process  of  true  historic 
developrrient,  and  what  does  not. 

The  position  which  we  are  endeavoring  to  establish 
has  been  very  clearly  and  conclusively  stated  by  one 
of  the  most  profound  of  English  writers,  and  we  con- 
clude this  introductory  part  of  the  discussion  by  an 
extract  from  him.  "  A  very  common  mode  of  inves- 
tigating a  subject,"  he  says,  "is  to  collect  the  facts 
and  trace  them  downward  to  a  general  conclusion.  — 
Now  suppose  the  question  is  as  to  the  true  essence 
and  character  of  the  English  Constitution.  First, 
where  will  you  begin  your  collection  of  facts  ?  where 
will  you  end  it?  What  facts  will  you  select,  and 
how  do  you  know  that  the  class  of  facts  which  you 
select  are  necessary  terms,  and  that  other  classes  of 
facts,  which  you  neglect,  are  not  necessary?  And 
how  do  you  distinguish  phenomena  which  proceed 
from  disease  or  accident,  from  those  which  are  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.      Ill 

genuine  fruits  of  the  essence  of  the  constitution? 
What  can  be  more  striking,  in  illustration  of  the  utter 
inadequacy  of  this  line  of  investigation  for  arriving  at 
the  real  truth,  than  the  political  treatises  and  constitu- 
tional histories  which  we  have  in  every  library  ?  A 
Whig  proves  his  case  convincingly  to  the  reader  who 
knows  nothing  beyond  his  author ;  then  comes  an  old 
Tory  (Carte,  for  instance),  and  ferrets  up  a  hamper- 
ful  of  conflicting  documents  and  notices  which  prove 
his  case  per  contra.  A.  takes  this  class  of  facts ;  B. 
takes  that  class ;  each  proves  something  true,  neither 
proves  the  truth,  or  anything  like  the  truth  ;  that  is,  the 
whole  truth. 

We  must,  therefore,  commence  with  the  philosophic 
idea  of  the  thing,  the  true  nature  of  which  we  wish 
to  find  out  and  exhibit.  We  must  carry  our  rule  ready- 
made,  if  we  wish  to  measure  aright.  If  you  ask  me 
how  I  can  know  that  this  idea,  my  own  invention  and 
pre-conception,  is  the  truth,  by  which  the  phenomena 
of  history  are  to  be  explained,  I  answer,  in  the  same 
way,  exactly,  that  you  know  that  your  eyes  were 
made  to  see  with  ;  and  that  is,  because  you  do  see 
with  them.  If  I  propose  to  you  an  idea,  or  self-realiz- 
ing theory  of  the  constitution,  which  shall  manifest 
itself  as  an  existence  from  the  earliest  times  to  the 
present ;   which   shall  comprehend   within  it  all  the 


112      THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

facts  which  history  has  preserved,  and  shall  give  them 
a  meaning  as  interchangeably  causes  or  eflfects,  princi- 
ples or  phenomena ;  if  I  show  you  that  such  an  event 
or  reign  was  an  obliquity  to  the  right  hand,  and  how 
produced,  and  such  other  event  or  reign  a  deviation 
to  the  left,  and  whence  originating,  —  that  the  growth 
was  stopped  here,  accelerated  there,  —  that  such  a  ten- 
dency is,  and  always  has  been,  corroborative,  and 
such  other  tendency  destructive,  of  the  main  progress 
of  the  idea  towards  realization ;  if  this  idea  of  the 
English  constitution,  not  only  like  a  kaleidoscope, 
shall  reduce  all  the  miscellaneous  fragments  into  or- 
der, but  shall  also  minister  strength,  and  knowledge, 
and  light,  to  the  true  patriot  and  statesman,  for  work- 
ing out  the  bright  thought,  and  bringing  the  glorious 
embryo  to  a  perfect  birth;  —  then,  I  think,  I  have  a 
right  to  say  that  the  idea  which  led  to  this  is  not  only 
true,  but  the  truth,  and  the  only  truth  in  the  case.  To 
set  up  for  a  philosophic  historian  upon  the  knowl- 
edge of  facts  only,  is  about  as  wise  as  to  set  up  for  a 
musician,  by  the  purchase  of  some  score  of  flutes,  fid- 
dles, and  horns.  In  order  to  make  music  you  must 
know  how  to  play  ;  in  order  to  make  your  facts  speak 
truth,  you  must  know  what  the  truth  is  which  ought 
to  be  proved ;  the  ideal  truth ;  the  truth  which  was 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.      113 

consciously  or  unconsciously,  strongly  or  weakly, 
wisely  or  blindly,  intended  at  all  times.*  " 

What  then  is  the  "form  of  induction"  which  we 
are  to  employ  as  our  method  or  clue,  to  lead  us 
through  the  mighty  maze  of  materials  in  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church  ?  What  is  the  antecedent 
idea,  or  self-verifying  theory,  with  which  we  are  to 
test  and  clarify  the  historical  data  in  this  depart- 
ment of  inquiry,  and  how  can  we  be  certain  that  it 
is  the  true  one  ?  These  are  the  questions  now  before 
us. 

The  brief  and  most  general  answer  to  them  is,  that 
the  true  idea  of  Christianity  is  the  key  to  the  history 
of  the  Christian  Church,  and  tjiis  true  idea  is  furnished 
by  the  Scriptures. 

We  have  seen  in  a  previous  lecture,  that  the  founda- 
tion of  Sacred  History  is  Divine  Revelation  ;  that  the 
inmost  life-power  which  restores  the  irue  development 
of  humanity,  and  the  inmost  law  which  regulates  the  pro- 
cess, are  the  influences  of  the  Divine  Spirit  allied  with 
the  doctrines  of  the  Divine  Word.  If  this  is  so,  it  fol- 
lows that  only  revealed  elements  belong  to  the  true 
history  of  the  church,  and  that  all  that  is  anti-scrip- 
tural should  be  detected  and  eliminated.      The  test, 

*  Coleridge's  Table  Talk,  (slightly  altered).    Works,  vi.  pp.  443-44. 

10* 


114  Tin;   ]•  Ji  I  Losoi'H  Y   of  history. 

consequently,  which  the  inquirer  is  to  apply  to  the 
complex,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  somewhat  heteroge- 
neous materials  that  meet  him  on  all  sides,  is  the  test 
of  the  written  revelation.    We  have  seen  that  the  pro- 
cess of  restoring  a  lost  normal  development,  is  a  dual 
one,  because  the   expulsion   of  the  relics  of  a  false 
germ  is  going  on  contemporaneously.    The  history  of 
the  church  is  imperfectly  normal,  not  entirely  symmet- 
rical, frequently  interrupted,  and  nearer  perfection  as  a 
whole  than  in  sections.    This  would  not  be  the  case,  if 
the  infallible  and  perfect  revelation  of  God  had  found 
a  full  realization  of  itself  in  the  church.    It  follows  con- 
sequently that  this  very  revelation,  itself,  is  to  be  used 
as  the  "form  of  induction,"  the  antecedent  norm  or 
rule,  by  which  conformity  and  agreement  are  to  be  indi- 
cated and  approved,  and  by  which  deviations  and  con- 
trariety are  to  be  detected  and  rejected.     In  short,  the 
student  of  Church  history  is  to  provide  his  mind  with 
the  Biblical  idea  of  Christianity,  and  to  use  it  rigor- 
ously,   as   the    crucial  test,    while    he  examines   the 
materials ;  while  he  examines  the  forms  of  polity  and 
of  worship,  the  varieties  of  orthodox  and  heretical  doc- 
trinal statement,  the  methods  of  defending  Christian- 
ity, the  modes  of«  extending  Christianity  among  un- 
christianized  nations,  the  styles  of  life  and  morals,  the 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.       115 

specimens  of  individual  christian  character.  Through 
all  this  complex  and  perplexing  mass  of  historical 
matter,  the  true  Scriptural  idea  and  theory  of  Chris- 
tianity is  to  conduct  the  investigator,  so  that  he  may 
see  the  true  meaning  and  worth  of  the  facts  and  phe- 
nomena, and  set  a  proper  estimate  upon  each.  That 
we  may  see  the  imperative  need  of  some  such  guide, 
let  us  look  at  a  single  class  of  phenomena ;  a  single 
series  of  facts.  We  find  a  polity,  a  church  constitu- 
tion, in  all  the  ages  of  the  Christian  church.  There 
is  the  Jewish  church-constitution  ;  then  the  exceed- 
ingly slight  and  almost  invisible  constitution  of  the 
Apostolic  church  of  the  first  forty  or  fifty  years  after  the 
death  of  Christ;  then  the  more  consolidated  republi- 
canism of  the  close  of  the  first  and  the  beginning  of 
the  second  century  ;  then  the  dim  beginnings  of  the 
episcopate  followed  by  the  established  primacy  of 
the  Roman  bishop  in  the  -Western  church,  and  of 
the  Constantinopolitan  bishop  in  the  Eastern ;  then 
the  absolute  monarchy  of  the  Romish  pope,  and  the 
ecclesiastical  despotism  of  the  mediaeval  polity ;  then, 
since  the  Reformation,  the  revival  of  all  but  the  last 
of  these  forms  of  polity  in  the  various  branches  of  the 
Protestant  church,  together  with  the  continuance  of 
the  Papacy  and  the  Patriarchate. 

Here,  now,  is  a  mass  of  conflicting  facts  and  phe- 


IIG  THE     I'll  I  LOSOPll  Y    OP    HISTORY. 

nomena,  upon  which  it  is  necessary  to  form  a  truly 
historic  judgment.  It  is  not  enough  to  take  the 
position  of  the  annalist  and  chronicler,  and  simply 
exhibit  the  facts,  without  any  philosophic  estimate  of 
their  intrinsic  and  relative  value.  Neither  is  it  enough 
to  give  a  vivid  and  dramatic  picture  of  all  these  fea- 
tures, and  parts,  of  the  total  process,-  and  nothing 
more.  The  historian  must  set  a  proper  estimate  upon 
each  and  all,  and  deliver  a  judgment  regarding  them. 
He  must  say,  and  show,  which  of  these  forms  of 
ecclesiastical  polity  is  most  congruous  with  the  spirit- 
ual nature  of  Christianity.  He  must  be  able  to  say, 
and  show,  which  of  them  deviates  most  from  the 
general  christian  idea  of  church  government,  and 
which  is  positively  contrary  to  it.  He  must  be  able 
to  say,  and  show,  which  grew  out  of  a  false  and  cor- 
rupted apprehension  of  Christianity,  and  so  tended  to 
perpetuate  the  error  in  which  it  had  its  own  birth. 

But  how  can  he  say  and  show  all  this,  in  reference 
to  this  mass  of  historical  facts  and  phenomena,  and 
how  can  he  say  and  show  the  same  in  reference  to 
the  whole  entire  mass  of  historical  materials,  if  he  has 
not,  clear  and  bright  in  his  own  mind,  the  true  idea 
and  theory  of  Christianity  itself;  that  Divine  idea, 
which  is  to  be  seen  struggling  for  realization  through 
all  this  ocean  of  elements  ;  that  Divine  theory,  which 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.      117 

is  being  executed  feebly  in  this  section  and  powerfully 
in  that,  which  is  resisted  in  this  age,  and  cherished  in 
that,  but  which,  in  the  entire  sequence  of  ages  and 
the  whole  sweep  of  years,  is  going  on  conquering  and 
to  conquer  ?  And  how  is  he  to  have  this  idea  and 
theory  clear  and  bright  in  his  mind,  leading  it  like  the 
Beatrice  of  Dante,  through  the  Hell,  Purgatory,  and 
Paradise,  of  history,  except  as  he  derives  it  from  the 
fixed  and  unchanging  written  revelation,  in  which  it 
is  distinctly  enunciated  and  explained  ? 

We  say  distinctly  enunciated  and  explained ;  for 
notwithstanding  the  difficulty  of  interpreting  certain 
portions  of  the  scriptures,  and  the  many  controversies 
that  have  arisen  within  the  church,  respecting  the 
real  mind  of  the  Spirit,  the  written  revelation  so 
plainly  teaches  one  general  system  of  religion,  that 
its  prominent  and  distinctive  features  are  to  be  seen 
in  each  and  all  of  the  various  forms  of  evangelical 
doctrine  that  have  appeared  in  the  Church  Universal. 
Even  when  this  general  system  is  overloaded  with 
human  inventions  and  additions  which  positively  con- 
tradict and  nullify  it,  or  tend  to  crush  it  to  death  by 
their  materialism,  there  is  sometimes  enough  of  it  still 
left  to  show  that  the  original  formers  of  a  symbol  were 
nearer  the  Biblical  system  than  their  successors,  and 
found  less  difficulty  in  detecting  in  the  Bible  a  com- 


118  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

mon  teaching  and  creed.  The  creed  of  the  Papal 
church,  though  not  evangelical  upon  the  distinctively 
evangelical  doctrine  of  justification  by  faith,  is  yet  in 
advaflce  of  the  present  religious  character  and  teach- 
ing of  that  body,  because  it  still  retains  some  of  those 
scriptural  elements  that  were  incorporated  into  it  in 
the  better  days  of  this  church.  And  hence  in  modern 
times  ;  since  the  Protestant  Reformation,  and  undoubt- 
edly under  the  influence  that  has  radiated  from  the 
scriptural  faith,  and  purer  practice  of  the  Protestant 
churches ;  men  like  Pascal,  and  parties  like  the  Janse- 
nists,  have  endeavored  to  effect  a  reform  within  the 
Roman  Catholic  communion,  by  cutting  off  the 
excrescences  of  tradition,  and  letting  the  original 
scriptural  stock,  imperfect  as  it  was,  grow  on  by 
itself.  All  the  attempts  at  reform  within  a  corrupt  Chris- 
tianity like  that  of  the  Romish,  and  the  Greek,  church, 
are  implied  proofs,  and  tacit  confessions,  that  the 
written  revelation  is  clear  and  unambiguous  in  its 
general  teachings.  For  there  could  be  no  endeavors 
to  get  back  to  a  conformity  with  an  original  directory 
like  the  scriptures,  unless  it  were  believed  that  there 
is  such  an  one,  and  that  its  directions  are  plain  to 
the  candid  and  truth-seeking  mind.  As  matter  of 
fact  the  symbols  of  the  various  churches,  are  nearer  to 
each  other  than  their  theological  tracts  and  treatises 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.       119 

are,  because  they  are  derived  more  immediately  from 
scripture  data :  the  Bible  being  not  only  a  unity,  but 
unifying  in  its  influence. 

Hence  we  say  that  the  idea  of  Christianity,  which 
the  inquirer  is  to  take  with  him  into  Church  History, 
can  be,  and  must  be,  derived  from  the  scriptures  them- 
selves and  alone.     If  it  were  a  secular  historic  process, 
the  preconceived  idea  need  not  necessarily  be  derived 
from  a  supernatural  revelation.     In   the  instance  of 
the  English  Constitution,  cited  above,  the  investigator 
takes  a  purely  human  idea  with  him,  as  he  follows 
the  constitutional  history  of  England  down  from  age 
to  age.     This  idea  is  no  other  than  that  organic  law 
of  the  realm,  of  which  jurists  speak,  and  which  is  not 
to  be  referred  to  a  specially  supernatural  source,  but 
to  the  spontaneous  operation  of  the  natural  reason  of 
man.     The  same  is  true  of  all  secular,  as  distinguished 
from  sacred,  history.     The  inquirer  is  not  in  the  region 
of  the  Supernatural,  and  hence  although  the  light  that 
is  thrown  upon  profane  history  by  the  Divine  revela- 
tion is  indispensable  to   seeing  its   deeper  and  more 
solemn   significance,  it  is  yet  not  the  sole  light  in 
which  it  must  be  viewed. 

But  in  Church  History  the  light  of  revelation  is  the 
sole  light  by  which  to  see,  and  the  revealed  idea  and 
theory  is  the  sole  preco?iception  by  which  the  mind 


120  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

of  the  inquirer  is  to  be  guided.  He  who  reads  the 
history  of  the  church  in  the  light  of  that  Divine  truth 
which  lies  at  its  foundation,  will  not  read  amiss.  He 
who  constructs  the  facts,  and  builds  up  the  account, 
by  the  method  and  plan  furnished  by  the  written 
word,  will  rear  the  structure  in  its  true  proportions.  — 
He  who 'takes  scriptural  Christianity,  as  the  "form  of 
induction  "  by  which  the  true  elements  are  to  be 
discovered,  and  wrought  into  the  account,  and  the  false 
elements  are  to  be  detected,  and  expelled  from  it; 
the  "  form  of  induction  "  by  which  the  tests  are  to  be 
applied  to  all  the  facts  and  phenomena,  and  the  cor- 
responding adoptions  and  rejections  of  good  and  bad 
materials  are  to  be  made ;  he  who  rigorously  applies 
this  scriptural  idea,  will  investigate  the  history  of  the 
church  in  such  a  manner  as  to  convey  the  real  lessons 
which  it  teaches.  All  ecclesiastical  history  composed 
in  such  a  manner  will  be  catholic  and  exactly  true.  — 
It  will  not  be  made  to  serve  the  interests  of  any  par- 
ticular sect,  for  it  will  impartially,  as  do  the  scriptures 
themselves,  expose  all  deviations  from  the  truth  of 
God,  though  within  its  own  sphere,  while  it  will  faith- 
fully report  and  depict  aH  conformity  to  that  truth,  in 
whatever  age  or  country  it  may  be  found. 

And  this   brings   to  our  notice,  the  necessary  and 
natural    connection    between    Church    History   and 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY.  ^    121 

Dogmatic  Theology.  The  two  sciences  are  recip- 
rocally related,  and  mutually  influence  each  other.  — 
For  this  pre-conception,  derived  from  the  scriptures, 
of  the  nature  of  Christianity,  whose  leading  Church 
History  follows,  is,  for  substance,  that  doctrinal  system 
which  the  theological  mind  has  formed  by  the  scientific 
study  of  the  written  revelation.  Notwithstanding  all  pro- 
fessions to  the  contrary,  every  writer  of  ecclesiastical 
history,  as  well  as  of  secular,  has  his  own  standing  point 
and  view-point.  This  can  be  inferred  from  the  spirit  and 
teachings  of  his  work,  as  unmistakably  as  the  position 
of  the  draughtsman  can  be  inferred  from  the  perspec- 
tive of  his  picture.  Who  can  mistake  the  political, 
philosophical,  and  theological,  ideas  which  Hume 
carried  with  him  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  his 
history  of  England?  Would  a  whig  theory  in 
politics,  a  platonizing  instead  of  a  pyrrhonizing  men- 
tal philosophy,  and  a  christian  instead  of  a  deistic 
theology,  have  read  the  facts  in  the  career  of  the 
English  state  and  church  as  he  has  read  them  ?  Who 
cannot  see  the  difference  between  the  rationalistic  and 
the  supranaturalistic  conception  of  the  christian 
religion,  as  he  reads  the  ecclesiastical  histories  of 
Semler  and  Henke  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of 
Mosheim  and  Neander  on  the  other  ?  In  all  ages  the 
written  history  of  Christianity  is  very  greatly  affected, 

11 


122  ,      THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

and  modified,  by  the  prevailing  theological  spirit  and 
bent  of  the  historian. 

But  on  the  other  hand,  dogmatic  theology  is  greatly 
affected  and  modified  by  the  history  of  the  church. 
Creeds  and  systems  that  are  formed  without  much 
knowledge  of  past  symbolism,  are  apt  to  differ,  some- 
times in  minor  and  sometimes  in  essential  respects, 
from  creeds  and  systems  that  breathe  a  historic  spirit. 
Thus  the  relation,  between  the  two  sciences  of  theo- 
logy and  history,  is  not  that  .of  mere  cause  and  effect, 
in  which  the  activity  is  all  on  one  side,  and  the  pas- 
sivity all  on  the  other.  It  is  rather  an  organic  rela- 
tion, of  action  and  reaction,  in  whrch  both  are  causes 
and  both  are  effects,  both  are  active  agents  and  both 
are  passive  recipients. 

But,  in  this  connection,  it  is  important  to  notice, 
that  the  Scriptures  stand  above  both  theology  and 
history,  as  the  infallible  and  unchanging  rule  by  which  • 
both  are  to  receive  their  ultimate  formation.  We  as- 
sume, and  believe  we  are  correct  in  so  doing,  that  the 
systematic  theology  which  the  christian  mind  has  de- 
rived from  the  written  word,  agrees  with  the  real 
teaching  of  this  unerring  source  of  religious  truth. 
Still  the  scientific  christian  mind  is  not  infallible,  and 
it  is  possible  for  it  to  deviate  from  the  matter  of 
Scripture.     Hence  the  need  of  a  continual  reference 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  123 

and  recurrence  to  revelation,  on  the  part  of  dogmatic 
theology.     Again,  the  experimental  consciousness  of 
these  doctrines  in  the  mental  and  moral  life  of  the 
church,  is  not  of  necessity,  and  beyond  all  possibility 
of  deviation,  a  perfect  and  normal  experience.     This 
historic  christian  life  needs  the  guidance,  and  often 
the  rectification,  of  the  revealed  canon.     Neither  dog- 
matic theology  nor  the  historic  movement  of  the  chris- 
tian mind  can  safely  be  left  to  themselves,  without 
any  protection  from  the  written  word.     Even  if  each 
should  be  carried  along  for  a  time  by  its  own  momen- 
tum, upon  the  right  line,  the  side  influences  of  the 
remaining  corruption  and  darkness  of  human  nature 
would  soon  begin  to  draw  it  aside,  and  the  deflection 
would  soon  be  plain  and  great.     The  actual  career 
of  some  branches  of  the  church   proves,  that  unless 
there  is  a  constant  recurrence   to  the  written  word, 
both  in  theoretical  and  practical  theology,  a  corrup- 
tion of  both  theory  and  practice  is  the  natural  result. 
Those  who  would  substitute  tradition  and  the  voice 
of  the  church  for  the  Scriptures,  as  well  as  those  who 
would   substitute  the    christian  experience   itself  for 
them,  commit  the  same  error  in  common.     The  Ro- 
manist and  the  Mystic  are  really  upon   one  and  the 
same  ground,  and  are  equally  exposed  to  that  cor- 
ruption of  Christianity  to  which   every  human   mind 


124  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

is  liable  which  does  not  place  the  Scriptur"es  above 
both  the  teachings  of  history  and  the  christian  con- 
sciousness, whenever  the  question  concerns  an  ulti- 
mate and  infallible  source  of  religious  knowledge. 

"While,  therefore,  we  believe  that  ecclesiastical  history, 
both  as  it  occurs  and  as  it  is  written,  is  modified  by 
the  theology  which  prevails,  and  the  theology  which 
prevails  is  in  turn  modified  by  the  knowledge  of  the 
past  history  of  the  church,  we  also  believe,  that  the 
two  cannot  safely  be  left  to  their  own  inter-agency, 
and  inter-penetration,  unless  both  are  all  the  time  feel- 
ing the  influences  of  the  infallible  revelation  in  which 
they  both  have  their  origin.  Two  streams  may  mix 
and  mingle  never  so  thoroughly,  yet,  unless  the  foun- 
tain is  constantly  pouring  into  them,  their  own  mere 
motion  cannot  keep  them  pure,  any  more  than  it  can 
keep  their  volume  full.  The  idea  of  Christianity  is 
therefore  to  be  kept  full,  pure,  and  bright,  in  the  head 
of  the  theologian  and  in  the  heart  of  the  christian, 
by  the  written  word,  which  has  been  preserved  for 
the  church,  in  order  that,  amid  all  the  grades  of 
knowledge  and  consequent  varieties  of  experience 
that  might  arise  within  it,  there  might  be  a  rule  of 
faith  and  practice  which,  like  its  Author,  should  be 
without  variableness  or  shadow  of  turning ;  because 
what  is  written  is  written. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OV    H  [STORY.      125 

By  thus  finding  the  Baconian  "form  of  induction," 
or  ultimate  interpreting  idea,  for  Church  History,  in 
the  Scriptures  solely,  yet  not  refusing  to  employ  the 
helps  for  understanding  them  afforded  by  the  general 
theology,  and  the  general  religious  experience,  of  the 
Church  Universal,"  we  avoid  that  fault  which  we  re- 
gard as  on  the  whole  the  most  serious  defect  in 
Schleiermacher  and  his  school ;  the  fault,  namely,  of 
an  undue  subjectivity.  For  this  school,  the  christian 
experience,  or  "  consciousness,"  has  a  worth  and  im- 
portance in  both  dogmatic  and  historic  constructions 
to  which  it  is  not  entitled.  In  the  reaction  against  the 
dead  orthodoxy  of  the  eighteenth  century,  they  have 
practically  undervalued  the  written  objective  revela- 
tion. "We  say  practically,  because  in  theory  they 
thoroughly  adopt  the  Protestant  maxim  that  the  Bible 
is  the  T)nly  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  Yet 
the  student  of  a  theological  system  lilve  that  of 
Schleiermacher,  and  a  history  like  that  of  Neander, 
finds  that  the  organization  of  the  former  and  the  con- 
struction of  the  latter,  are  actually  determined  more 
by  an  appeal  to  the  living  consciousness  of  the 
church  than  to  the  written  word  of  God.  The  doc- 
trinal development  in  the  one  representation,  and  the 
historical  development  in  the  other,  is  too  much  a 
self-determination  of  the  christian  mind  and  soul,  with 

11* 


126  THE     PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

too  little  reference  to  the  correcting  and  regulating 
influence  of  that  Divine  truth  in  which  all  christian 
experience  must  find  its  norm.  The  historian  does 
not  exhibit  with  sufficient  fullness,  the  influence 
which  the  inspired  canon  has  exerted  upon  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  christian  life.  The  process  of  Sacred  His- 
tory is  regarded,  too  much,  as  self-directed.  Hence, 
the  general  undervaluation  of  strict  dogmatic  state- 
ments, as  cramping  the  movement  of  the  free  chris- 
tian spirit,  the  leniency  towards  certain  heretical  ten- 
dencies, and  the  occasional  hesitating  tone  as  well  as 
vagueness  of  vision  in  respect  to  scientific  orthodoxy, 
which  characterize  the  best  complete  history  of  the 
christian  religion  and  church  that  has  yet  been 
written. 

What  is  needed  is,  more  objectivity;  more  mould- 
ing by  that  fixed  Object,  that  unchangeable  Word, 
whose  function  it  is  to  form  the  changing  experience 
by  its  own  fixedness  and  immutability.  Conscious- 
ness cannot  be  an  absolute  and  final  norm  for  con- 
sciousness. It  is  the  object  of  consciousness,  by  which 
the  process  of  consciousness  is  to  be  shaped  and  deter- 
mined. Inasmuch  as  that  subjective  process  of  faith 
and  of  feeling,  which  is  seen  in  the  christian  church, 
owes  its  very  existence  to  the  objective  revelation,  so 
it  must  be  kept  pure  from  corruption  and  error  by  the 


THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY.  127 

same,  and  be  criticised  and  estimated  by  the  same. 
To  leave  the  process  to  test  itself,  and  to  protect  itself 
from  corruption,  is  not  safe.  An  individual  Christian 
who  should  trust  to  the  feelings  of  even  a  regenerate 
heart,  and  the  inward  light  of  even  a  renewed  mind, 
without  continually  comparing  this  subjective  feeling 
and  knowledge  with  the  written  word,  would  be  the 
victim  of  a  deteriorating,  and,  probably  in  the  end,  an 
irrational  and  fanatical  experience.  Much  more  then, 
is  it  unsafe  to  set  up  the  christian  experience,  as  the 
ultimate  source  of  chrj|^tian  science  and  the  final 
test  of  christian  development,  either  in  the  particular 
or  in  the  universal  church. 

Hence  the  Church  historian  must  guard  against 
two  extremes.  He  must  not,  with  the  "Rationalist, 
magnify  the  individual  reason  and  the  private  judg- 
ment, to  the  disparagement  of  the  general  reason  and 
judgment  of  the  universal  church,  by  disregarding  or 
despising  the  historic  faith  and  the  historic  experience. 
On  the  other  hand  he  must  not,  with  the  Roman 
Catholic,  seek  the  ultimate  source  of  religious  knowl- 
edge in  a  tradition  theoretically  co-ordinated  with 
revelation,  but  practically  supreme  over  it,  nor  with 
the  Mystic  Theology,  attempt  to  find  it  in  a  "  christian 
consciousness  "  which,  like  all  forms  of  consciousness, 
is    fugacious    and    shifting,   and    therefore   liable    to 


128  THE    PHILOSOPHY    OF    HISTORY. 

deterioration.  These  two  extremes,  involving  three 
species  of  subjectivity,  will  be  avoided  by  him  who 
does  not  regard  either  the  individual  or  the  general 
christian  mind  as  upon  an  equality,  in  any  sense,  with 
the  Scriptures,  but  believes  that  both  the  individual 
and  the  church,  in  all  ages,  are  to  be  subjected,  both 
in  respect  to  doctrine  and  experience,  to  the  tests  of  a 
wisdom  more  unerring  than  that  of  the  best  and  wisest 
of  human  minds  or  of  human  societies ;  the  wisdom 
of  an  infallible  inspiration. 


WARREN  F.  DRAPER, 

BOOKSEJLJLER   AND    PUBLISHER, 

AjmIovcb',   Mass., 

Publishes  and  offers  for  sale  the  following : 

HISTORICAIi   DEVELOPMENT  OF  SPECUIiATIVE 
PHI1.0S0P1IY  FROM  KANT  TO  HEGBIi. 

From  the  German  of  Dr.  H.  M.  Chalybaeus.    With  an  Introduo 
tory  Note  by  Sir  William  Hamilton.    1  vol.  12mo.  $1,25. 

COMMENTARY    ON    THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE 
ROMANS. 

By  Prof.  M.  Stuart.     Third  edition.     1  vol.  8vo.  $2,25. 

COMMENTARY   ON    THE    EPISTLE    TO    THE 
HEBREWS. 

By  Prof.  M.  Stuart.     Third  edition.     1  vol.  8vo.  $2,25. 

OUTLINES  OF  SYSTEMATIC  RHETORIC. 

From  the  German  of  Dr.  Francis  Theremin,  by  W.  G.  T.  Shedd, 
Professor  at  Andover.    New  edition.    75  cents. 

VENEMA'S  INSTITUTES  OF  THEOLOGY. 

Translated  by  Rev.  A.  W.  Brown.    8vo.   pp.  532.   Fine  edition. 

$1.50. 

"  It  must  be  admitted  that  Venema  had  far  more  independence,  both  of 
thought  and  style,  than  belonged  to  many  of  his  contemporaries.  The 
perusal  of  Venema's  treatise  cannot  fail,  we  think,  to  awaken  a  spirit  of 
Kiblieal  inrestigatiou,  and  to  illustrate  the  importance  of  an  accurate  and 
well-balanced  theological  system."  —  Bib.  Sac.  Jan.  1854. 

LECTURES  ON  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  HISTORY. 

By  Prof.  W.  G.  T.  Shedd.     1  vol,  12mo.  60  cents. 

ADDRESSES  OF  DRS.  STURTEVANT  AND  STEAR.*S 

At  the  Anniversary  of  the  American  Congi'egational  Union, 
Jlay,  1855.    30  cents. 


BIBIilOTHECA    SACRA    AND    A3IERICA]V    BIBLICAL. 
REPOSITORY. 

Conducted  by  Prof.  Park  and  others.    $3  per  annum  in  advance, 
■  $4  if  not  paid  iu  advance.    D:^Complete  sets  may  still  be  had. 

RUSSELL'S  PULPIT  ELOCUTION. 

Comprising  Remarks  on  the  Effect  of  Manner  in  Public  Discourse; 
the  Elements  of  Elocution  applied  to  the  Eeadiug  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, Hymns  and  Sermons;  with  Observations  on  the  Princi- 
ples of  Gesture ;  and  a  Selection  of  Exercises  in  Reading  and 
Speaking.  With  an  Introduction  by  Prof.  E.  A.  Park  and  Eev. 
E.  N.  Kirk.     12mo.  pp.  413.     Second  edition.     Price  $1,00. 

ERSICINE    ON    THE    INTERNAL    EVIDENCE    FOR 
THE  TRUTH  OF  REVEALED  RELIGION. 

Third  American,  from  the  fifth  enlarged  Edinburgh  edition. 

16mo.   pp.  139.   50  cents. 

"No  man  ought  to  consider  himself  as  having  studied  theology,  unless 
he  has  read,  and  pondered,  and  read  again,  '  Erskine  on  the  Internal  Eyi- 
dence.'  "  —  Independent. 


The  prices  of  the  following  are  reduced: 
HENDERSON  ON  THE  MINOR  PROPHETS.    §4,00. 
•    «'  "     EZEKIEL.     S3,00. 

«'  "     JEREMIAH  AND  LAMENTATIONS. 

83,00. 

JAHN'S   ARCHAEOLOGY.    8to.   S1,50. 

STUART'S  MISCELLANIES.    12mo.   75  cents. 

PUNCHARD  ON  CONGREGATIONALISM.    Second  edition. 
12mo.  50  cents. 


BIBLICAL  REPOSITORY. 

First  Series,  comprisin^^^e  twelve  volumes  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  work  to  1838.  The  first  four  volumes  containing 
each  four  numbers,  the  succeeding  eight  volumes  two  numbers 
each.    A  few  sets  only  for  sale. 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


liPJpUTHERN 


AA 


REGIOAiAL 


&VFAc/ury 


000  283  740 


'     t 


fl 


I  ■' 


n      ji'  » 


